How do residents perceive and experience processes of remediation? What are the vicarious effects of surgical training on family and friends who support residents? How do women surgeons experience interprofessional workplace conflict? How do surgeons experience stress in the operating room?

These questions illustrate important surgical investigations that have been explored using qualitative research. Qualitative methods are particularly useful for exploratory studies that use how, what, and why questions, which aim to better understand social phenomena, group interactions, lived experiences, perspectives, attitudes, motivations, and beliefs of the people involved. In surgical education, qualitative research can be used to gain insight, locally and globally, into the experiences and perspectives of surgical residents, practicing surgeons, patients, operative teams, family members, and other stakeholders in the surgical education process.¹