A qualitative approach was chosen to explore physician views about PE in medical device decision-making . More specifically, the research design employed was based on what is referred to as basic descriptive qualitative research . This method does not generate theory as would other qualitative approaches such as grounded theory technique. Instead, the purpose of basic descriptive qualitative research is to describe factual information about phenomena directly conveyed by participants through semi-structured interviews. It is interpretive and, as we did, often employs a theoretical framework to analyse the findings once generated using methods of qualitative analysis. Rigour and transferability were optimized using standard strategies and reporting criteria [24, 25]. These included exploring responses inductively for emerging ideas, identifying deviant cases, comparison of independent thematic coding across two individuals and demonstrating responses from an array of respondents by including an anonymous identification code with exemplary quotes. Ethics approval for this study was granted by the University Health Network. Participants provided written informed consent prior to being interviewed, in which they were apprised of the research rationale and goals. There was no relationship among members of the research team and participants.