"where will most of the data be housed" or "which table will retain most of the information?"... I thought I understood her question, but now that I am home, I'm very confused, as that still sounds more like an excel spreadsheet rather than a relational database.

1) is it not more ideal to have collections of information in multiple tables (i.e. Orthopedic Surgeon, Anatomy, Referral Reason, etc) vs combining some into a larger table? Especially when that info is complex?
Seems like both could be true actually. I often have lots of tables with just a few fields used for comboboxes. Yet most of the data actually resides in a couple main tables with tons of records.

Just a thought to ponder but if I had to answer her question to help get a big picture and oversimplify your situation it would be this:
- Surgeons table
- SurgeonLimitations table

And maybe instead of Surgeons table you call it something more like Providers table to include both surgeons and clinics.