This TED Talk features organizational ethnographer Matt Bean, recorded live at TED Salon, the next wave 2018.

It's 6.30 in the morning, and Kristen is wheeling her prostate patient into the OR.

She's a resident, a surgeon in training. It's her job to learn.

Today, she's really hoping to do some of the nerve sparing, extremely delicate to section

that can preserve erectile function. That'll be up to the attending surgeon, though, but he's not there

yet. She and the team put the attending surgeon, though, but he's not there yet.

She and the team put the patient under, and she leads the initial eight-inch incision in the lower abdomen.

Once she's got that clamped back, she tells the nurse to call the attending.

He arrives, gowns up, and from there on in, their four hands are mostly in that patient,

with him guiding, but Kristen leading the way.

When the prostate's out, and yes, he let Kristen do a little nerve sparing, he rips off his scrubs.

He starts to do paperwork. nerve sparing. He rips off his scrubs. He starts to do paperwork.

Kristen, Kristen closes the patient by 815,

with a junior resident looking over her shoulder,

and she lets him do the final line of sutures.

Kristen feels great.

Patient's going to be fine, and no doubt, she's a better surgeon than she was at 6.30.

Now, this is extreme work, but Kristen's learning to do her job the way that most of us do,

watching an expert for a bit, getting involved in easy, safe parts of the work,

and progressing to riskier and harder tasks as they guide and decide she's ready.

My whole life, I've been fascinated by this kind of learning.

It feels elemental.

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