The ‘natural’ starting point for doctors undertaking a real career in academic medicine is to do a PhD at some point during medical training, usually during the years as a specialist registrar. Once this has been completed, there are opportunities to continue lab research while completing clinical training, as a so-called clinician scientist. Assuming that one still wishes to be an academic with active laboratory research, the next step is to obtain a senior clinical research fellowship, which is the final stepping stone to becoming a fully fledged independent researcher, both clinically and scientifically. Thereafter, the ambitious can aim for a university chair, a Nobel Prize, a knighthood…

Important skills

As for most areas of academic medicine, dedication, empathy, skill and a little luck are all important. Also, the support of a good boss and a mentor is essential.

Rewards

Scientifically, seeing an experiment through, from intellectual conception, to execution, to analysis of the results, and to the formulation of new ideas and experiments, is hugely rewarding intellectually. Clinically, rewards come from continuing interactions with patients and, specifically, being able to explain to them what their disease means, what can be done to treat it and how it will affect them, both in the short and long term. Often, that means helping people come to terms with the idea of death.