If You Can’t Take 4 Weeks of Vacation Without Chaos, Your Dental Practice Isn’t Healthy
- Jesper Hatt DDS
- Dec 19, 2025
- 5 min read
When time off from your dental practice doesn’t bring peace
There is a moment I have seen again and again among practice owners.
It often happens late in the day. The dental practice is quiet. The schedule is closed. And a thought appears: “When was the last time I was actually off?”
Maybe you’ve taken time off. Maybe you’ve even been away from the practice for several weeks.
But truly off?
Mentally?
With calm in your body and without the feeling that the practice is balancing on the edge while you’re gone?
For many experienced dentists and practice owners, the answer is no. Not because they don’t care about their practice. Quite the opposite. They care deeply about their patients, their team, and the community they’ve built.
And precisely because of that, letting go — even during vacation — is difficult.
Do you also need a little peace and inspiration in your busy everyday life? I share little ideas on how you can create balance and energy in your clinic – follow me here on LinkedIn.
Vacation as a stress test for your dental practice
There’s a sentence I often use in my work with practice owners:
If your dental practice can’t function without you for four weeks, then you don’t own the practice — the practice owns you.
This isn’t meant as criticism.It’s meant as clarity.
Vacation isn’t just time away from the clinic. Vacation is a stress test of leadership and structure. It reveals how the practice actually functions when you’re not present — and whether safety and stability live in systems, or in you as a person.
When the thought of vacation creates unease
“What happens to the practice if I’m not there?”
When I ask practice owners what would happen if they took four weeks off without being available, the answer rarely comes without hesitation.
There’s often an inner unease. A sense that something would start to slip. Not dramatically. But slowly. Small decisions that aren’t made. Small issues that grow. A shift in the atmosphere within the practice.
This is rarely about a lack of competence. It’s almost always because the dental practice has gradually been built around one person: the owner.
When practice operations become person-dependent
From practice community to dependency
Most dentists start their practice with a desire for freedom. Freedom to decide for themselves, to build something meaningful, and to have balance between work and life.
But after a number of years, freedom is often replaced by responsibility. A responsibility that feels heavy — and difficult to hand over — because it’s tied to care for patients and loyalty to the team.
The challenge arises when safety in the practice becomes dependent on you being there. When the team waits for your answers. When operational decisions are postponed. When knowledge and systems live primarily in your head.
It can feel like trust.But in reality, it’s dependency — and dependency does not create calm in a dental practice.
What creates safety in a healthy dental practice?
Safety in a dental practice does not come from the owner always being present.It comes from clear frameworks and shared responsibility.
When employees know how the practice handles deviations, patient communication, and decisions — even during vacation. When they know who is responsible for what. And when they experience the practice as a community, not a one-person operation.
This is where balance in practice management begins.
When you’re on vacation - but mentally still in the practice
The hidden burden on the practice owner
Many practice owners only become aware of the imbalance when they try to take time off. When they check emails from the clinic. When messages keep coming. When the body is away, but the mind stays with the practice.
This is rarely about control.It’s about responsibility and care.
But without real rest, leadership becomes reactive. And over time, both the practice owner and the practice lose the balance that vacation was meant to restore.
What vacation reveals about leadership in a dental practice
When the owner steps away, the practice structure becomes visible. Unclear decision paths, uncertain communication, and unevenly distributed responsibility surface.
These are not failures.
They are valuable insights.
Vacation shows where the dental practice lacks support and where leadership can grow stronger.
How to create a dental practice that functions during vacation
Less pressure - more structure in practice operations
The solution is rarely to work harder.It is almost always to work differently.
It starts with identifying where you’ve become the bottleneck. Where responsibility is unclear. And where the practice’s sense of security is tied to your presence.
When leadership and responsibility are shared clearly, calm emerges - even when the owner is on vacation.
When leadership becomes a shared responsibility
When leadership is shared, the team grows. Collaboration becomes more stable. The atmosphere in the dental practice becomes calmer.
And the owner experiences that leadership is no longer about holding everything together — but about creating structures that can hold on their own.
When time off from the dental practice is no longer a problem
One of the most moving things I hear is when a practice owner says:
“I could actually relax — and the practice functioned.”
This isn’t just about operations.It’s about inner security and balance.
Vacation isn’t the goal for practice owners — balance is
The goal isn’t four weeks of vacation.
The goal is a dental practice where:
the practice functions without constant owner presence
the team stands together in shared responsibility
leadership creates safety and support
practice operations provide balance — not strain
Vacation is simply the clearest indicator.
A calm invitation to you as a practice owner
If you felt a sense of recognition while reading this - not as criticism, but as relief - I’d like to offer you a different kind of next step.
Instead of another course or more information, I invite you to a calm, confidential online conversation with me.
This is not a sales call.There’s no pressure and no obligation.
It’s simply a space where we can slow things down and talk about your practice, your leadership, and your current reality. What feels heavy. What feels out of balance. And what you would actually like things to look like — for you, your team, and your life.
Many practice owners carry these questions alone for a long time. This conversation is an opportunity to share them with someone who understands the clinical, operational, and human side of running a dental practice.
If you’re curious about how to create a practice that can function without constant dependence on you — and how to move toward more balance and security — I’d be glad to meet you online and explore it together.
Sometimes, clarity doesn’t start with answers.
It starts with a conversation.
Send me an email with your question or preferred time for an online conversation.
Reminder
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Thank you for reading this blog post.
Kind regards
Jesper Hatt
Dentist, consultant & coach
T: +41 78 268 0078
At Hatt Consulting, we know how demanding it can be to make both your practice and your personal life work well together. Many practice owners don’t actually dream of working more — they dream of creating more calm, energy, and balance in their everyday lives.
We help you and your team find small, practical ways to make daily work feel lighter. This might be through personal sparring, shared in-practice training, or simple online tools.
Our goal is for you to feel secure and confident in your role as both owner and leader, while still having the energy to be fully present — with your patients, your team, and at home.
Would you like to hear how we can support you and your practice?
Write to us at Mail@HattConsulting.com, and together we’ll find the solution that brings you the greatest sense of calm and clarity.
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