Background Some postgraduate medical trainees in the General Practice (GP) and Elderly Care Medicine (ECM) training program, are considered being talented trainees (TTs) by their peers, teachers (at the institute), trainers (in clinical practice), and/or patients. We are currently unaware if these TTs are trained to meet their maximal potential or whether they are not fully stimulated during their learning process in the postgraduate training program. It is important to acknowledge them, because if we fail to acknowledge and suitably challenge TTs, it may lower their work ethos and satisfaction or cause loss of our TTs. As a first step, we will explore the way TTs make use of the learning possibilities provided during the postgraduate training program and what stimulates and hinders their learning in the clinical workplace. Knowledge on this subject is important for two reasons. First, knowing how TTs learn, can provide insights for improving learning in the workplace for all trainees. Secondly, with this knowledge, we can enrich the development of TTs. Thirdly, enhancement of workplace-based learning might lead to higher quality of learning, resulting in health care professionals trained to their full potential. Methods and analysis We will address these questions in an open approach, conducting explorative qualitative semi-structured interview study with GPs and ECM specialists, who during their postgraduate training were seen as talented by their third year supervisors and completed their postgraduate medical training two or less than two years ago. We will perform the interviews in Dutch. We expect that the interview will not take longer than 45-60 minutes per interview. We plan to start at the beginning of 2023 and will continue until data sufficiency is reached. All interviews will be audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. We will use thematic analysis to analyse the transcripts of the interviews. This is an iterative process of familiarizing yourself with the data, generating initial codes, searching for themes, reviewing themes, defining and naming themes. We will use MAXQDA 2022 software. Ethical considerations The Ethics committee of the Dutch Association of Medical Education (NVMO) gave ethical approval for this work (NERB dossier number: 2022.7.3).

The authors have declared no competing interest.

This study is funded by ZonMw (project number 839130008).

I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained.

Yes

The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below:

The Ethics committee of the Dutch Association of Medical Education (NVMO) gave ethical approval for this work (NERB dossier number: 2022.7.3).

I confirm that all necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived, and that any patient/participant/sample identifiers included were not known to anyone (e.g., hospital staff, patients or participants themselves) outside the research group so cannot be used to identify individuals.

Yes

I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance).

Yes

I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines and uploaded the relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material as supplementary files, if applicable.

Yes

All data produced in the present study are available upon reasonable request to the authors.