Objective To discuss the effectiveness of tracer methodology in the training of intern medical record writing. Methods Fifty interns who received medical record writing training in July 2012 were set as control group and were trained by traditional methods. Meanwhile, 58 interns who received medical record writing training in July 2013 were set as investigation group and were trained by tracer methodology. Pre-training questionnaire survey was conducted for interns in investigation group and targeted training was provided. After the training, interns in two groups were surveyed by questionnaire of basic norms of medical record writing. Excel software was used to do data entry and SPSS 21.0 statistical software was used to statistical analysis. P<0.05 signifies statistical differences. Results Final record writing exam after the training demonstrated that there were significant differ-ences in basic requirement of record writing, basic principle of record writing, history taking, record time limit, contents of record writing and correct rate of patients' answer to the document between in-vestigation group and control group with statistical differences(P<0.05). Conclusion Tracer method-ology has obvious effects in intern medical record writing training and is worth popularization and ap-plication in clinical teaching.