By Melissa Repko

After spending his days in a research lab, physician Hubert Zajicek made a sharp turn in his career. He began business school in 2004 at Southern Methodist University while still researching cell biology and kidney function and working as a UT Southwestern faculty member. His MBA started him on a new path as a mentor and advocate for health care startups.

Zajicek, who grew up in Vienna, followed in the footsteps of his grandfather and father to become a physician. He's now the chief executive and co-founder of Health Wildcatters, a Dallas accelerator for health care startups. The accelerator, founded in 2013, accepts about a dozen startups into a 12-week program each year. They receive $30,000 in exchange for 8 percent equity. The accelerator has raised four funds of about $1 million and invested in 42 startups so far.

The accelerator has also become a health care hub. It moved into a new office last year on the 20th story of a building in downtown Dallas. It rents out offices and co-working space to health care-related companies. It also hosts events, such as breakfasts featuring health care entrepreneurs or executives.

Zajicek spoke about his enthusiasm for health care innovation at his office recently. His comments have been edited for brevity and clarity.

How did you switch from being a medical researcher to a champion of startups?

I like to see something I do have some sort of an impact on people, most likely in my lifetime. That's kind of your expectation as a physician. In science, you really push that time frame out. The chances your current discovery will have a human impact are more likely to occur 20 to 30 years from now - if at all. And that's a fairly sizable gamble. Not to say that I'm an instant gratification guy, but I wanted to see some things happen in my lifetime. I explored the MBA and discovered entrepreneurship there as a way to see impact in a shorter period of time.

But to boot, it turns out there aren't very many people who can speak the language of science and medicine and business.

Why is the time ripe for health care innovation?

We can always improve lives and reduce suffering. When you look around at any hospital, there's lots of suffering. There are lots of diseases that aren't cured. There are a lot of minor annoyances and major annoyances.

Innovation in health care is always going to be there; the question is can we [Health Wildcatters] play a role in bringing some of the most cutting-edge technologies across the valley of death where the ideas die and people say, 'It can't be done. I can't do it.' That early-stage capital and that early, early help is something we do.

Zajicek spoke about his enthusiasm for health care innovation at his office recently. His comments have been edited for brevity and clarity.

How did you switch from being a medical researcher to a champion of startups?

I like to see something I do have some sort of an impact on people, most likely in my lifetime. That's kind of your expectation as a physician. In science, you really push that time frame out. The chances your current discovery will have a human impact are more likely to occur 20 to 30 years from now - if at all. And that's a fairly sizable gamble. Not to say that I'm an instant gratification guy, but I wanted to see some things happen in my lifetime. I explored the MBA and discovered entrepreneurship there as a way to see impact in a shorter period of time.

But to boot, it turns out there aren't very many people who can speak the language of science and medicine and business.

Why is the time ripe for health care innovation?

We can always improve lives and reduce suffering. When you look around at any hospital, there's lots of suffering. There are lots of diseases that aren't cured. There are a lot of minor annoyances and major annoyances.

Innovation in health care is always going to be there; the question is can we [Health Wildcatters] play a role in bringing some of the most cutting-edge technologies across the valley of death where the ideas die and people say, 'It can't be done. I can't do it.' That early-stage capital and that early, early help is something we do.

The average health care entrepreneur is more likely to be in their 30s than in their 20s. They're also more likely to have some sort of professional health degree or have worked in a setting like that, like nursing or health care administration. It's a more buttoned-up, professional background. That's simply because even understanding the problem requires quite a bit of translation to start with.

About two-thirds of the startups that have gone through your accelerator are from outside of Dallas-Fort Worth. What does Dallas gain from having them here?

They [the startups] end up having a connection to Dallas that is significant to them in one way or another. It could be they got investments here, advisers, all the way up to they locate their core business here. It's a wide variety. But one thing for sure is that they get to know the region, and whether they end up deciding to move here or just have an office here or just have a relationship with us as initial investors, they have good connectivity around town. They enrich our health care innovation ecosystem by coming here and bringing their people in. People get to know our region as one that is doing good stuff that they would like to be involved in.

What are the strengths and weaknesses of the Dallas-Fort Worth entrepreneurship ecosystem?

It's an incredibly entrepreneurial region in a very entrepreneurial-favoring state with independent-minded people. It favors innovation. Our region, specifically, continues to grow professionally with large corporations moving here. In health care, the fact that we have so many hospital groups here competing with each other makes for a healthy appetite for innovation as well and willingness to go out on a limb and try something. So it's a good test ground for startups.

What about weaknesses?

It's big. When I was in Frisco [working at the North Texas Enterprise Center, a startup incubator], we weren't sure that anybody from Dallas would drive up there. And vice versa. Now I'm in Dallas, our meetings are breakfasts in downtown Dallas at 8 a.m. on a weekday. If you're in Plano, that's not so much fun. It's bad. And then you deal with parking. It's just a very significant investment in time.

How can we turn that into a strength? I don't know, but the acknowledgment that there doesn't need to be one [entrepreneurial] center is a start.

HUBERT ZAJICEK

Age: 47

Hometown: Grew up in Vienna, Austria; lives in Dallas

Education: M.D. from the University of Vienna and MBA from Southern Methodist University

Family: Wife Beth; two daughters, 15-year-old Annie and 12-year-old Emily; three dogs, a goldendoodle named Lucy, a rat terrier named Tillie and a chihuahua named Skippy