New surgeon accepting credit is sponge (9)
I believe the answer is:
scrounger
'is sponge' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'new surgeon accepting credit' is the wordplay.
'new' is an anagram indicator.
'accepting' means one lot of letters goes inside another (inserted letters are accepted).
'credit' becomes 'cr' (abbreviation).
'surgeon' is an anagram of 'sounger'.
'sounger' going around 'cr' is 'SCROUNGER'.
(Other definitions for scrounger that I've seen before include "Freeloader" , "bum" , "Sponge" .)