Research in medical education does not provide a clear understanding of how professional expertise develops among surgeons and what experiential factors contribute to that development. To address this gap, the researchers interviewed 16 international experts in female pelvic medicine and reconstructive surgery to assess their reflective perceptions of what specific opportunities and experiences...

There is a continuing debate in the psychological literature between those who lean more towards learning theories of expertise development and those leaning more towards talent theories. However, the development of human expertise has not been open to direct experimental methods and will probably continue to elude experimentalists in the future. A promising alternative is to employ non-human a...