Ep. 77: Finding balance between patient care and world travel with PA Robert Vagueiro
About this episode
Robert Vagueiro discusses balancing a surgical career with world travel and the importance of work-life balance.
Physician assistant and travel content creator Robert Vagueiro — known online as The Traveling PA — joins us to share how he’s built a career that blends surgery, adventure, and intentional work‑life balance. Robert discovered his passion for the operating room during clinical rotations and has since built a diverse surgical career spanning general surgery, bariatrics, vascular, urology, and now cardiac surgery. Robert walks through how he navigated each specialty transition, the importance of “just showing up” to build skills early in your career, and how lateral mobility within the PA profession has allowed him to continually grow while staying in the OR. Robert discusses the problem‑solving skills travel has sharpened, how global experiences have shaped his perspective as a clinician, and why he values protecting his PTO. He also opens up about building The Traveling PA as a digital scrapbook of his life — a place where he documents both his surgical work and his journeys across more than 50 countries, inspiring other healthcare professionals to work hard and play hard. Follow Robert on Instagram: @thetravelingpa__
More episodes of The Locumstory Podcast | Locum Tenens Insights from Real-Life Physicians, PAs, and NPs
- Ep. 76: Dr. Mark Pool’s journey into locum tenens, entrepreneurship, and balancing medicine with family life
- Ep. 75: Balancing a dermatology career, a hair‑transplant fellowship, and locum tenens work with Dr. Leah Cardwell
- Ep. 74: A career shaped by rural medicine, private practice, and over a decade of locum tenens work with Dr. Steven Gordon
- Ep. 73: Taxes and financial planning for locum tenens physicians with Ben Nanney, CPA, CFP
- Ep. 72: A career in academia, financial wellness, and physician entrepreneurship with Dr. Brittne Halford
- Ep. 71: A mid-career pivot into locums as a Neonatal Nurse Practitioner with Thomas Cotto
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