Welcome to the Clinician Researcher podcast, where academic clinicians learn the skills
to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor.
As clinicians, we spend a decade or more as trainees learning to take care of patients.
When we finally start our careers, we want to build research programs, but then we find
that our years of clinical training did not adequately prepare us to lead our research
program.
Through no fault of our own, we struggle to find mentors, and when we can't, we quit.
However, clinicians hold the keys to the greatest research breakthroughs.
For this reason, the Clinician Researcher podcast exists to give academic clinicians
the tools to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor.
Now introducing your host, Toyosi Onwuemene.
Welcome to today's episode of the Clinician Researcher podcast.
I'm your host, Toyosi Onwuemene, and it's such a pleasure to be here.
And I have to tell you that today I have a treat for you because I have an extra special
guest.
Her name is Sarah Dobson, and she is just a wonderful...
Actually, the word I had in mind was badass, but she's a wonderful person.
And she's just excellent in grant writing.
And actually, I could tell her story, but I think she tells it better.
So I'm just going to introduce her.
Sarah, welcome to the show.
Thank you so much for having me.
It's great to be here.
So Sarah, you are someone who's an expert in grant writing, yet you are not currently
in academic medicine.
And so I want you to just share with my audience your story.
How do you get from where you started to where you are now?
Well, it's a long and winding path, first of all.
An important thing to know about me is that I am a law school dropout.
So I did a liberal arts undergrad degree, and my plan at that time was to pursue medicine
and to head in that direction.
But during my undergrad, I realized, I don't know if that's the career for me.
And looking back, I think it had to do with feeling insecure that I didn't have all of
the answers, and I couldn't possibly if I even studied to become a clinician.
I don't know what that was about in my 19, 20-year-old brain, but I just felt a lot of
pressure to be an expert, and I just didn't feel confident or comfortable claiming that,
I think.
And so I was like, well, that's probably not the right path for me.
So what is an alternative?
What's going to allow me to do something interesting and exciting and play with big ideas?
And so I chose law school mostly as, I think, a way to expand my options and get some professional
training that could then take me in a bunch of different directions.
And so I didn't have to figure it out right away.
So I was accepted to...
So the other thing to know about me is that I am based in Canada.
I'm Canadian.
And so all of this is happening in Canada, although I work primarily with US-based researchers.
That's a later part of the story.
So I was accepted to law school, and on the first day, I just had this gut feeling like
this is really not for me.
But I stuck it out for about 18 months, and I learned some very important lessons.
Number one about how to communicate with an audience and understanding the objective of
a piece of writing, which was a really crucial lesson that I still use every day in my career
now.
But the process of quitting law school taught me a lot about who I am as a person, and just
the growth that I had to go through to be able to make that decision was absolutely
life-changing and career-changing.
So that's a really important part of the story, even though it sounds like a deviation from
the path.
But what ended up happening after I quit law school is a friend of mine who was working
at a hospital in a pulmonary oncology clinic was like, we need somebody.
Do you want to come in and interview for a job?
And so a little 22-year-old me went in for this job just as a clinic coordinator.
And I took the job and got introduced to the world of biomedical research, because this
pulmonary oncology clinic was doing a lot of research primarily on quality of life,
but they were also doing clinical trials and that sort of thing.
And this was my first real introduction to this universe.
And I was fascinated and got really, really interested in the work that they were doing
and really invested in the work they were doing.
And of course, in my actual role, I was meeting a lot of these patients and getting to know
them, and of course, watching their decline, because this was a lung cancer clinic.
And so it was another really important growth point for me, I think, but also just like
it was just really moving.
It was just a really moving place to work.
And it was also the first time I was working with clinicians and clinician scientists.
And I just developed this, I think, this deep appreciation for the work that they do, primarily
because it was so clear to me that the questions they were asking were emerging from patterns
they were observing in their patients and just this desire to understand it, to help
even more.
And I just appreciated that so much about the people that I was working with.
And so that was a really foundational experience for me.
But what I realized in the couple of years that I was working my first real job was that
I wanted to enter that world myself.
And so I decided to pursue a graduate degree in population and public health research.
And so I stayed connected with the hospital and with the clinic and ended up doing my
research there, just understanding wait times.
And it was what I think I was most interested in and I didn't really realize at the time
was the more sort of qualitative aspect, like how does it really impact an individual to
have to wait for a diagnosis and a treatment plan.
But what I ended up doing was just trying to understand what are the different factors
that might impact the patient's wait time and whether those are really necessary or
not necessary.
And it was mostly just a way to stay connected to the people that I'd started working with
and the patients.
But it was fascinating to be in that environment for such a long period of time.
Halfway through my graduate degree, I ended up getting quite sick, and life-threateningly
sick.
So I had to put things on pause and that really I think also kind of changed the course of
where things were going.
I had fully intended to go on and do a PhD, but I just realized with what has happened,
I need to just wrap up my master's degree and then find something a little bit more
stable and figure out what next steps are.
And so I moved across the country.
I moved out here to Vancouver, British Columbia, and I ended up getting a job with a sort of
a startup research center out here that focused on medical education and so helping figure
out how we train the next generation of clinicians.
And so it was introduced to a whole different area of research and just different perspectives
on interdisciplinary research really.
But what I was doing in that context was more on the administrative side of things and on
the grantsmanship side of things.
And that's where what I do now really comes in is I started, people would just send me
their papers and their grants before they would be submitted to the different funding
agencies or the different peer review journals and say, hey, can you just take a look at
this?
And it wasn't technically, at least initially, part of my job description, but because I'd
grown up being a reader and a storyteller, I just kind of took that on as something I
really enjoyed doing and people seemed to get a lot of benefit out of it.
And more and more it became part of my role.
But to shorten this story, I just realized at a certain point that being on the staff
side at a university is not the best.
And so for me, I just decided that I was going to take what I considered then to be my one
skill set, which was really academic editing, and kind of start a freelance career and just
go out on my own and see what I could do on my own and get away from all the bureaucracy
and all of the underestimation that was happening in the university setting.
And so that's what I did.
And over time, I started specializing and subspecializing in grant writing, and even
now more specifically in NIH grants, and more specifically than that in R01 or R series
grants.
Yeah.
So hopefully that wasn't too long winded an explanation.
It's a very long story.
It's an important story, actually.
So we've talked a few times and I've not heard the story this great extent of the story.
So I'm really glad you share it because I think I get three things from you sharing
that story.
Number one is that you are someone who has a clear sense of who you are.
And even though it took you 18 months from the time you knew that you weren't supposed
to be in law school, you still got to a point where you made that decision.
And it was a hard decision because actually what would have been easier, so to speak,
is to keep going until the end, which is what most of us do.
And you made a change.
And then you took advantage of a situation in which you were growing as someone who was
really an expert in grant writing, and you just continued to hone in on your expertise
and you doubled down on it, which I think so many of us are trying to be generalists.
And it's like, can you find the thing that you're really good at and really make it amazing?
And that's what you've done.
And then the third thing I get out of that too is that at some point you recognize that
the value you were creating was greater than the value that was being reimbursed, if that's
the right way to say it.
And for that reason, you bet on yourself.
And you said, you know what, I'm really good at this.
I think it's high value.
I'm going to see how other people perceive that.
And it's been a bet that's paid off really big.
And wow, now you help so many physicians and so many scientists turn around grants.
And you can't even take as many people that are trying to come into your program.
So I just want to say kudos to you for making a path that's really now serving so many people.
And maybe you can just share with your audience, with my audience, what do you do as far as
like, how do you help people write grants or how do you help people support people's
grant writing?
Yeah.
So it happens.
So I have a business, of course, but the way that I think about it is that there are sort
of two arms to the business.
One is more like a consulting agency where we work one-on-one with clients who are resubmitting
previously discussed R01.
So I know that sounds very specific, but we do that for a really important reason.
And that's because if we have an R01 that's been previously submitted and discussed, we
have some really important information.
We have the summary statement.
So we have the critiques from reviewers around the scientific and technical merit of the
application.
And we also have some information about the grantsmanship.
But because the grant was discussed, we know that the critiques of the scientific merit
and the approach primarily are fairly easily addressable in the ways that a grant that
gets triaged probably aren't.
There's a lot more to do there on the approach side than there would be on the discussed
side.
And so if we can help our PIs understand what it is that they really need to do on the grantsmanship
side and also they're already tackling what needs to be done scientifically, that is what
can help them get across the pay line.
And so that's what we're supporting to do.
And the reason that we've ended up in that place is just as you mentioned earlier, we
have so much demand for this service that we can't possibly help everyone.
And so we've had to be really selective about who we work with.
And so we're working with the PIs who are in the best position to get funded.
And even there, it's still a pretty big hurdle to clear when pay lines are so low and the
success rate is so low.
So yeah, we're doing what we can on that side.
So that's the agency side.
And then on the other side, it's really like an online education company, a faculty development
company.
And on that side of the business, what we do is support PIs to write grants through
a self-paced online course called the Grant Funding Formula.
And we have an R-series track for that course and also a Career Development Award track
for that course.
So it basically walks you through how to write one of these grants step by step, just to
understand what the process is like going through strategy and planning and actually
building out the argument that you're trying to make.
And then how do you get appropriate feedback that's going to be useful to you and what
you need to do to sort of fine tune the application.
So we cover a lot in the self-paced course to help folks get these grants out the door
in a shape that is going to help the grant be as competitive as possible.
The other thing that we do on the education side of the business is we have a group program
for women faculty who are making that transition from their Career Development Award to our
level funding, primarily R01s, R35s, that sort of level.
And that is a really, I would say, a really delicate transition point.
There's a lot going on there that's about more than just learning how to write a different
type of grant, a much bigger, more all-encompassing type of grant.
There's a lot of identity stuff going on there and a lot that needs to be considered in terms
of setting yourself up for long-term success and not just looking at the short-term, you
know, how do I get this grant funded?
It's really about faculty development, career development, and making sure that you are
designing your career in a way that's going to be most fulfilling and meaningful to you
so that you stick with it.
Okay.
You've said a lot, Sarah.
You've told me about grant writing and then you talk about identity.
Okay.
Bring the two together for me.
Okay.
So there is a logic to all of this.
So I started out really just doing the grant reviews.
And what I noticed when I was working with PIs was a lot of, you know, I had a very detailed
process laid out so that I could do my job, right?
You know, I need to be able to get documents from the PIs so that I could do my review
and get them back in time so that it would be useful for them to make changes and get
the grant out the door.
And so this was all laid out in advance.
But what I found more often than not was PIs would come back and say, I wasn't able to
get that done in time and I'm not going to be able to get my documents to you.
But you know, I can't do my job if you can't get me your stuff.
And so what I realized was a lot of PIs really struggle with time management, I mean, which
I consider really self-management in a lot of ways.
And I think, you know, if you're in the clinical world, in the academic world, you're almost
inevitably an overachiever.
And by nature, you're just taking on a lot of projects because you can't be.
People look to you and say, you know, this person can get a lot done.
So we're going to ask them to do even more.
And if you're particularly early in your career, that is, I mean, it's flattering to be asked,
right?
And so you just take on more and more and more.
But that doesn't leave a lot of space for your own work.
But that work is the most important work that you can be doing.
And if you're not making space for it, and if you're not recognizing how important it
is to create space for the writing and the thinking and the preparation for the research
you want to do and the impact that you want to make with your research, you're doing yourself
a disservice.
And so both the grant funding formula course and, in particular, the group program called
K to R Essentials, those were developed to support PIs in better preparing for grant
writing in particular, but more broadly just in terms of how to think about how they spend
their time.
Because I think in the long run, that is one of the most important things you can do to
be successful and prolific as a researcher is to understand your own habits, understand
what your priorities are, understand what it really takes out of you to produce excellence.
And if you're just, again, looking at the short term and not being as intentional as
you could be about all of that, it's going to be so much harder to produce a grant at
all, much less a competitive grant.
And you're going to burn yourself out in the process.
And that doesn't serve anybody.
Wow.
I feel like some of the, you know, as you're talking, I think what comes to mind is that
some of the things you're saying actually feel countercultural, right?
Because we're in a space where it's like, no, just get the grant out and then get the
next one out and then get the next one out.
But you don't advocate that.
You don't advocate just grant after grant after grant submission.
But there's pressure on faculty to get funded.
So how do you manage that?
How do you manage the pressure to get funded in producing high quality work that can be
funded?
Yeah.
So that is a great question.
And I think, so I'm coming at this as an outsider, right?
I don't experience that same pressure.
And so to a certain extent, I don't relate to it.
But what I find so fascinating is that you and your institution want the same thing,
which is a funded application, right?
But what they are telling you to do is to just churn out application after application
with no regard to quality.
You know, I guess with the idea that eventually something is going to hit.
But that's not how I look at it at all.
And that's the whole reason that my business exists, right?
I don't buy into that.
I don't buy into the idea that the quality is consistent across all of these grants that
you're churning out cycle after cycle or multiple grants in one cycle, right?
In my view, it's always, always quality over quantity.
And the more time you can spend understanding what it is you want to do and how you want
to do it and learning how to communicate the value of your research, that is what's going
to get you funded.
It has nothing to do with the number of grants you submit.
It has to do with the quality of the grants that you submit.
And yes, of course, there is some luck involved.
And we are well aware of the systemic biases that exist within, I mean, I'm talking about
NIH specifically, but that's true of many, many funding agencies, right?
That but I do think that quality makes a difference.
And what I mean by quality is that you are making it as clear and simple as possible
to your audience, to your reviewers, what it is that you are trying to accomplish and
why it matters.
And it's really hard to do that and to put yourself in somebody else's shoes, to put
yourself in your reviewer's shoes when you've got a million other things going on and you're
just trying to check those boxes.
You're not really giving yourself the space to think through your idea and to figure out
how someone else might receive it for the very first time.
And so I understand that there is tremendous pressure on clinicians to submit these grants
and to generate grant funding.
But I don't think the answer is to fall prey to this false sense of urgency because I don't
think it's serving you.
I think you're letting anxiety drive your decision making and that is not what is going
to get you funded.
Thank you for sharing that.
So what I'm hearing is really starting from a deep space of work that matters, work that
you find valuable and important and building from that rather than the sense of urgency
and anxiety of just get another grant out, just get another grant out, which could decrease
the quality of the work you do and also perhaps not even be satisfying because it may not
speak to kind of the greater good that you want to do through your science.
Exactly.
And I'll just add one more thing, which is that it's completely understandable that that
is the impulse that most researchers have because that's what they see happening around
them everywhere, right?
That's just what everybody does.
You're just on this treadmill of submitting applications and rushing to resubmit the ones
that don't get funded and just continuing that cycle.
So it's completely understandable that that's how you think that you're supposed to do it,
but it does not have to be that way.
And in fact, especially if you are just starting out in your career and you don't have the
body of work that your more senior colleagues have to draw upon to be able to write a grant
more quickly, you're going to think that you're doing it wrong.
You're going to think that because it's taking you so long that you're doing something wrong.
But when you're in the beginning, there's so much learning that you're doing.
You're learning a new grant mechanism and all of the guidelines and hoops you have to
jump through administratively to get the grant out the door, right?
So that's one piece that you're learning.
You're also developing your program of research and trying to figure out what it is that you
want to do and how you want to get there.
And then you're also learning how to write this new type of application.
And so all of that is happening simultaneously.
And it's just a lot.
And I think people underestimate that full stop.
They just underestimate all of the different pieces that are involved in that early stage.
And I think they just underestimate how much time that actually takes to do well.
What I'm hearing you say is that it's like a plant, a seed that was planted.
And although you may not yet see the seed push through the surface, there's a lot going
on beneath the surface.
And it's helping people to recognize that even if they may not have pushed through yet,
there's a lot going on and to really show themselves compassion and not compare themselves
to perhaps those who are more senior and have passed that phase.
But that's all they may recognize as the norm for themselves right now.
But really to look and see how much has been accomplished and to really look on oneself
with compassion.
Well, yes, you said that far more eloquently than I did.
That's exactly it.
I would say compassion over anxiety, kind of driving the bus every single time.
So you've worked with a lot of faculty.
Who are those who succeed?
Well, good question.
One of the things that we have observed is that the PIs who continue to advance their
research idea from the time they submit their initial application to the time they get their
peer review critique back, those are the ones who are most successful because they're not
just submitting a grant and kind of moving on to the next thing.
They're always thinking about what needs to be done to move this project forward.
And so by the time they get their summary statement, their peer review critique back,
they've already very likely addressed some of the critiques that are in the summary statement,
but they're also much more nimble and prepared to answer any critiques that they had not
anticipated.
So that would be one thing.
I would say the ones who are organized and prepared.
And sometimes that means, you know, if we're talking about resubmissions, that means people
who are willing to skip a grant cycle to be able to do the job that needs to be done to
get the grant into competitive shape.
So if the critiques are telling you that you need more preliminary data, for example, and
there's just realistically not enough time to get that all done and to rewrite the grant
for the upcoming grant cycle, they are willing to play the long game and understand that
it's worthwhile to wait three months to be able to do a better job on the resubmission.
And I would say more broadly, when I think about the PIs who've been successful in that
K to R transition, it's the ones who understand where it is that they're headed.
They understand what their vision is.
They understand where they want to go and where they want to make their impact.
And they just focus all of their energy on that.
And they just don't worry about the other stuff.
Because again, you're going to get so many requests for your time and your participation
and your expertise.
But if it doesn't align with where you want to go and the impact that you want to make,
it's not worth your time.
Or I guess it's up to you to decide whether it's worth your time.
But that's a really important consideration to just think about, why am I here?
What am I here to do?
And how can I point all of the work that I'm doing towards that and just gracefully let
go of everything else that comes my way?
But what that requires is a deep sense of self-trust and self-compassion and a willingness
to be uncomfortable, quite honestly.
Wow, this is powerful stuff.
So we're talking about grant writing, but we're not talking about grant writing.
We're not talking about grant writing.
And this is what I mean when I say, laying that foundation for long-term success, right?
Because it's not just about one grant application.
It's about how you set up your career.
And for clinicians, that can get really complicated because there are just so many different demands
on your time.
And so in my view, that makes it extra important to clarify what matters to you and where you
want your impact to be, and more specifically, what you want your research impact to be so
that you're not spreading yourself too thin and you're able to really devote your time
and your energy and your focus to what is most meaningful and fulfilling to you.
Yeah, it's really important.
It's really deep and powerful.
I mean, the whole time you were speaking, I think the thought that came to my mind is
just the sense of depth, right?
This is not just a surface level, produce the next thing.
It's like, where are you going?
What are you creating?
What's the impact you envision for your research?
And start from that space.
And because you start from that space, you're not anxious trying to just do the next thing
and the next thing because it's really, you recognize, you said you're playing the long
game.
If you're going to play the long game, you got to work at it.
And whether or not people support you, you've got to move things forward.
So it's, yeah, it makes it all comes back full circle to what you talked about identity.
It's like, who are you?
Start from that space rather than what do you need to do?
That's exactly it.
And I think playing the long game allows you to put those disappointments in context, right?
It's, graduate writing is really challenging and the funding landscape is very competitive.
And so you're not going to get every grant that you submit it.
In fact, you're probably, I mean, if we're talking about NIH, you're probably going to
get 20% or less of the grants that you submit funded unless and until you really develop
that grandmanship skill set and get really solid in terms of your program of research,
right?
That's the beginning.
Set the bar low.
And so if you're thinking about it in terms of the long game, you're not as worried about
this one didn't get funded this time, but I know where this is going and I know that
the feedback that I'm getting can improve this for the next time.
It's easier to not take it as personally, I think, if you're focused on where you're
headed.
Any one of those losses is not going to matter as much because you understand what your mission
is.
Yeah, you know, one of the things you talked about earlier is about the need to be uncomfortable.
And I think to some extent, there is a feeling that there's not as much institutional support
for these kinds of endeavors really.
And I think that's some of the pressure people feel is where it feels as if, well, if you
don't get funded, there you go.
We're going to give you a lot more other work to do and now you really won't be able to
move your work forward.
So I think there's this sense of, well, if I don't get the support I need, maybe I can't
move forward.
Could you speak to how do you move forward even if you're betting on yourself and you're
not necessarily receiving the kind of support you need, but you recognize that your work
is important and you want to move it forward?
Another excellent question.
So the first thing that wants to come out is do not wait for your institution to support
you.
And I say that as someone who believes very, very strongly that your institution ought
to support you financially to succeed, right?
Because they're reaping the benefits of it.
I mean, again, when we're talking about NIH grants, which is what I specialize in, they
are getting massive benefit through indirect funds from that.
And so for them to just say, good luck to you, figure it out is abhorrent to me.
And yet that's what a lot of faculty experience is like, how hard can it be?
Just figure it out.
You got to do this.
And if you can't figure it out, you're just going to be spending more of your time doing
clinical work and less of your time doing research.
And there's just nothing we can do about that.
So again, I recognize that pressure.
But what I would say is that if you're letting your anxiety about that dictate how you move
forward, that is just a recipe for burnout, for unfulfillment, for unhappiness in your
career.
And so if you can focus on what matters the most to you and find ways to make it work
without the success of your institution, they can't say anything to you at that point, right?
Because you're going to be successful in spite of that.
And also, that is really useful information for you to have about your institution, right?
If they are not willing to support you to get grant funding or whatever other sort of
professional development you might need to succeed in your career, that's just really
good to know because that allows you to decide whether this is the right home for you.
And I mean, none of this is easy and a lot of it is really uncomfortable.
But I think the wider your eyes are open to how institutions get away with bad behavior
and the amount of pressure that's unnecessarily on clinical faculty and research faculty,
yeah, I mean, again, I'm an outsider to this and I just find the whole thing to be baffling
the way that most faculty are treated.
And so anywhere you can push back and disrupt and fight that by just saying, like, I'm just
going to do it my way and we'll just see how it turns out.
Yeah, that would be my approach.
The whole time you're talking, I'm smiling inside because I'm like, this is why I love
Sarah.
And it's the journey.
And when you shared your story initially, it's like, this is your story, the story of
not accepting the mold, not just cutting off your arms and fitting in the mold.
It's the story of saying, no, I don't feel like a fit.
How do I make this work for me?
And what resonates with me and what you're saying is that the institution is here for
us.
We are not here as faculty for the institution.
The institution is a platform to build our careers.
And the institution is the institution because of faculty who have thriving careers.
And so even when we're feeling pressure, it's up to us.
In a sense, it's like a kid who just only wants to eat candy.
It's like, well, candy is not good for you.
So we're not going to let you eat it all the time.
In a sense, it's you standing up and saying, I know you're saying this is the path you
want me to take, but this is not the path you want for me.
You want me to be successful.
And therefore, I push back against this because when I'm successful and I will be, you're
going to benefit from it.
And therefore, you can support me.
And that's hard.
No, of course it is.
But institutions make you feel like you are lucky to be there and you are easily replaceable.
And it's just not true.
And you have a lot more control than you think you do.
And I think the more that you can recognize that and use that, the better off everyone
will be ultimately.
I think hopefully institutions are starting to realize that the systems that they've built
are just not working anymore.
And we need a new way of doing this.
We need a new way of moving through academia in a way that is more sustainable for faculty.
And that, I think, unfortunately starts with the faculty because the institutions aren't
going to do it.
So pushing back and saying, I'm going to do it my way, that's how it starts.
Yeah.
It's really beautiful.
It's powerful.
And it's important.
And it's hard.
And that's why being part of communities that support you to do that is critical.
It's hard to do this work by yourself.
Absolutely.
So what does my audience need to know about your community?
They're like, oh my gosh, this Sarah is amazing.
I want her to help me with my grant.
How do they connect with you?
Well, they can head to my website, which is sarahdobson.co.
So S-A-R-I-H-D-O-B-S-O-N dot C-O.
And they can sign up for my newsletter there.
So once a week, I send out an email that speaks to a lot of what we've been talking about
on the show today.
And of course, earlier I mentioned the different ways that I serve PIs and my team and I serve
PIs.
And so you can find more information about that on the website as well.
And of course, if you have any questions, you can just reply to any one of those newsletter
emails and we're happy to answer any of those questions.
So awesome.
I'm putting in a plug for your newsletter because it's so powerful.
I love reading your newsletters.
They're so awesome.
You sent me so many lovely notes after your newsletters.
I really appreciate it.
You need to do a master class for how to write a newsletter.
You're so good.
Okay, so we're at the end of the podcast and we've said a lot, we've shared a lot, we've
discussed a lot.
Thank you.
What is left on set?
What is the final parting comment that you want to share as we end the show?
I mean, I think it's just coming back to what I started with, which is I started my career
working with clinician scientists and just really deeply appreciate the inspiration that
clinician scientists have for the research that they're doing, which is it's just motivated
by a desire to better understand and better serve their patients.
And so what I want to remind your audience of is don't lose sight of that.
That is the most important thing that you need to hold onto in all of this with all
of the different demands coming at you and the busyness of your professional life.
Just always try to hold on to that and why you're in this career in the first place,
because that is what is going to help you develop those cutting edge research ideas
and it's what is going to bring enthusiasm and curiosity and passion to your grants and
your papers.
And that is what it's all about.
That's so beautiful.
What a way to end.
Thank you so much, Sarah.
My absolute pleasure.
Thank you so much for having me.
All right, everyone.
I don't even know what to say to add to that.
It's been a really amazing and powerful conversation.
Somebody else needs to hear this.
And so please don't listen and then just put your phone away.
Please share this with someone else, especially people you know and you know who they are
who are struggling with the whole grant writing cycle and Sarah's team can certainly help.
All right.
Well, it's been a pleasure talking to you with you all today, Sarah.
Thank you again for being on the show.
My pleasure.
All right.
Bye, everyone.
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Clinician Researcher podcast, where academic
clinicians learn the skills to build their own research program, whether or not they
have a mentor.
If you found the information in this episode to be helpful, don't keep it all to yourself.
Someone else needs to hear it.
So take a minute right now and share it.
As you share this episode, you become part of our mission to help launch a new generation
of clinician researchers who make transformative discoveries that change the way we do health
care.
Thanks, Sarah.