Artlessness of surgeon standing by major road in north-east (7)
I believe the answer is:
naivete
'artlessness' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'surgeon standing by major road in north-east' is the wordplay.
'surgeon' becomes 'vet' (I've seen this in other clues).
'standing by' says to put letters next to each other.
'major road' becomes 'AI' (resembles Av, a major road).
'in' indicates putting letters inside.
'north east' becomes 'ne'.
'vet' put after 'ai' is 'aivet'.
'aivet' placed into 'ne' is 'NAIVETE'.
'of' is the link.
(Other definitions for naivete that I've seen before include "Being green" , "Ingenuosity" , "natural simplicity" , "Quality of the simple" , "lack of sophistication" .)