This is the first paper in the project. The project aims to explore how lifelong learning is currently defined, educated and assessed in postgraduate medical training and speciality practice. This will lay the foundation of successive works that aim to determine the status of lifelong learning practice at present in orthopaedic training institutions in South Africa, determine consensus on how it should be defined, educated and assessed in the orthopaedic community, inform the development of a measure of lifelong learning in orthopaedic trainees and specialists, assess if improved scores in lifelong learning correlate with professional satisfaction measures and develop and assess an educational model and test it for efficacy.