[3] His father Stewart was a prominent faculty physician for Emory University Medical Center, attending patients alongside his mother who served as his nurse.

After graduating from Emory, and despite his previous experiences in anatomy and surgery, Roberts served as an intern in medicine at Boston City Hospital before pursuing a 3-year residency in anatomic pathology at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.

He also began reading the works of Jesse Edwards, which he credits with helping to develop both his style of writing and strong interests in medical authorship and publications.

He next served as a resident on the Osler Medical Service at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore before spending an additional year as a fellow in cardiovascular disease at the National Institutes of Health.

In March 1993, 32 years after starting at the NIH, Roberts left the National Institutes of Health to join the faculty of Baylor University Medical Center, the flagship of a large hospital network located in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex.

As editor for both the Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings and The American Journal of Cardiology, Roberts published a number of editorials discussing current trends in cardiovascular medicine.

In April, 1994, Roberts was appointed as editor of the Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings, a peer-reviewed and PubMed-indexed periodical of primarily regional interest in North Texas.

Roberts himself contributed a column to each issue entitled "Facts and Ideas from Anywhere", an homage to one of the guiding principles he ascribes to his colleague Eugene Braunwald.

Roberts was appointed to chair the publications committee of the American College of Cardiology (ACC) in 1976 by then-president Dean Mason, and continued to serve in this position for the next six years.

Roberts stated that his goals as editor-in-chief were to increase the "fun" of authorship and help encourage authors to contribute meaningful information to the sphere of cardiology while minimizing the political complexities associated with the process of academic publication.