Do experts practice what they profess?

We investigated the variation of drilled regions of expert and trainee surgeons performing virtual temporal bone surgery to identify their compliance with standard drilling procedures. To this end, we recruited seven expert and six trainee ENT surgeons, who were asked to perform the surgical preparations for cochlear implantation on a virtual temporal bone. The temporal bone was divided into six regions using a semi-automated approach. The drilled area in each region was compared between groups using a sign test. Similarity within groups was calculated as a ratio of voxels (3D points) drilled by at least 75% of surgeons and at least 25% of surgeons. We observed a significant difference between groups when performing critical tasks such as exposing the facial nerve, opening the facial recess, and finding the round window. In these regions, experts’ practice is more similar to each other than that between trainees. Consistent with models of skills development, expertise and expert-performance, the outcome of the analysis shows that experts perform similarly in critical parts of the procedure, and do indeed practice what they profess.