Teaching clinical methods to medical students.

This paper demonstrates that it is feasible to teach clinical methods in general practice and describes the organization of an appropriate attachment. Willing practitioners, properly briefed, are competent to undertake clinical methods teaching and the attachment provides satisfaction to both students and teachers. It is possible to provide in primary care the elements which seem to be the key to this outcome--protected time, teaching in very small groups, direct observation and concentration on systematic examination rather than on particular physical signs. There is a strong case for the promoting of clinical methods teaching by general practitioners.