Once you have identified people who consistently perform better than their peers, the next step is to figure out what underlies that superior performance. This usually involves some variation of the approach, described in chapter 1, that I used in the memory work with Steve Faloon. That is, you get retrospective reports, you have people describe what they’re thinking about as they perform a task, and you observe which tasks are easier or harder for someone and draw conclusions from that. The researchers who have studied doctors’ thought processes in order to understand what separates the best
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