To clarify the experience in clinical practice of students at Osaka University Medical School, a questionnaire survey was performed according to the International Classification of Primary Care. More than half of the students had observed only 6 of the 23 reasons for seeking primary care such as headache and hypertension but had not experienced 17 of the 23 reasons, such as cough and abdominal pain. Most students had observed malignancy and chronic diseases, but more than half had only knowledge of 54 of 105 diseases such as appendicitis. In conclusion, medical students' experiences in clinical practice are not well balanced.

Departments of general medicine in medical schools have a mission to innovate in clinical education. However, the kind of work departments should do to promote a newly developed method of clinical education is unclear. In our medical school, the department of general medicine was organized in 1997. In that year, the first task of this department was to strengthen a program of physical-diagnosis skills. Since 1999, this program has developed further and been reorganized. The basic clinical skills course has been organized to include communication, physical diagnosis, basic laboratory examination, and basic surgical skills. In this course students do not rotate through clinics in groups but learn together via a systematic program with simulators. The department of general medicine played a central role in establishing this course. This course led to the introduction of clinical clerkships at our medical school.