Episode 27: Becoming a Clinician Scientist in Neurosurgery. A Conversation with Dr. Robert Starke

Dr. Maxwell Boakye
September 16, 2022

There is often a gap between what happens in the laboratory and what happens with patients in clinical practice. Yet both experiences are required to advance patient outcomes. This is why we need more doctors like Robert Starke. Dr. Starke is a clinician scientist at the University of Miami with over 700 operations and just as many academic publications in his young career. Join me as I sit down with Dr. Starke to discuss the secrets to his extraordinary success, the grant writing process, and future pathways for the development of clinician scientists in the field of neurosurgery.

You will want to hear this episode if you are interested in…

Getting to know Dr. Starke, his clinical practice, and his research [0:36]
Dr. Starke’s evolution into a productive clinician scientist and the challenges of pursuing both basic and clinical science [4:34]
Dr. Starke’s current research setup and how he chose his area of focus [9:38]
How Dr. Starke innovates, where his funding comes from, and the story of his first major grant [16:59]
Choosing a faculty position that allows you to thrive and how to build a balanced life [24:58]
Dr. Starke’s paper writing process and the publications he’s most proud of [29:18]
The role mentors have played in Dr. Starke’s career and what he would do differently [32:15]
The importance of training clinician scientists and future pathways for development [37:05]
Dr. Starke’s three secrets to an extraordinary neurosurgery career and his advice to struggling clinician scientists [40:12]
The magic wand question [44:33]

Learning how to fail

When people look at an accomplished clinician scientist like Dr. Starke, they only see the finished product. What they don’t see is all of the hard work and failures that came before eventual success. One of the toughest challenges Dr. Starke overcame was learning how to apply for and receive grants to fund his research. What makes grant writing so difficult, especially for neurosurgeons, is that failure is an inherent part of the process. You will get rejected. A lot. Failure is not something a typical neurosurgery resident has experienced much of. Most are so used to succeeding at every level that getting rejected after years of work on a grant proposal can be demoralizing. While Dr. Stark admits the experience was difficult, he also recognizes that those elements were incredibly important for his development and research. Learning how to fail helped him look at his ideas more carefully, develop further preliminary data, work harder, and figure out how to turn rejections into approvals.

Finding balance

A constant challenge in the life of a physician is finding balance. It’s very easy to dive headfirst into our work and neglect other crucial aspects of our lives. Dr. Starke’s advice for achieving a balance between clinical practice, research, and having a personal life is picking one, maybe two professional areas to focus on. It’s hard to be a great surgeon, a good teacher, and a quality researcher on top of having a family and maintaining friendships. Part of the problem is that our training tells us we’re not supposed to have balance. That we are destined to drink out of a firehouse in perpetuity. However if you’re constantly banging your head against the wall at work, you will be very one-sided. Additionally, your work will suffer because you’re not making time to connect with the outside influences that make you better and more well-rounded. Neurosurgeons can optimize their results by keeping themselves from burning out through balance.

Asking for help

A major part of Dr. Starke’s early success has been his commitment to mentorship. Anytime he ran into an area where he lacked experience or understanding, Starke sought out mentors. Even if he already had mentorship in one area, he was intentional about finding the people who could offer wisdom in the areas other mentors couldn’t. Which is incredibly healthy! We can’t expect one mentor to bear the weight of our entire careers, can we? But more than finding good mentors, Dr. Starke wants to be a good mentee. That means working hard, being curious, and doing your best. It also means bringing something to the table that makes your mentor’s investment worth their time. Of course, they want to see you improve, but you also need to add value to their research. Listen to this episode for more from Dr. Robert Starke!