We examined ambulatory clinical training for patients with dementia conducted by residents at a university hospital and instructors at a psychiatric hospital who mainly treat patients with dementia in the General Internal Medicine Department of a regional hospital. Residents experienced dementia treatment in the context of primary care, and performed in-depth learning about dementia with the guidance of psychiatrists. It is hoped that dementia treatment will be provided by family doctors. Moreover, it is expected that doctors who have undergone this training will contribute to dementia treatment.

Introduction: Primary care includes general outpatient clinics and primary/secondary emergency outpatient clinics; however, the differences in treatment settings between these clinics may affect the development of educational programs for postgraduate clinical training. This study aimed to retrospectively investigate the content experienced by residents in community-based outpatient training, which includes general ambulatory training and primary/secondary emergency training, and to compare the differences between items that are more likely to be experienced in general outpatient clinics and those that are more likely to be experienced in the emergency department.Methods: The number of trainees who experienced symptoms and diseases specified in the national residency system was calculated during general ambulatory training and primary emergency training. These numbers were compared by the Fisher's exact test.Results: Items suitable for learning clinical reasoning, such as headache, and items suitable for continuous treatment of chronic diseases, such as dementia, were experienced significantly more frequently in general ambulatory training than emergency training.Conclusion: The symptoms and diseases that are likely to be experienced in general ambulatory training were extracted. These items were considered to be consistent with the purpose of general outpatient training.