ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how clinical teaching has evolved and compares some of the differences in clinical teaching between primary and secondary care. It looks at how successful this teaching is in preparing the authors' students for a career in medicine and attempt to foresee how it will need to change in the future. Whilst many senior doctors fondly remember this style of training there were some major disadvantages. First, it was very inefficient, with students often spending hours in repetitive tasks such as routine filing of test results or phlebotomy. Second, the apprentice system afforded little opportunity for educationalists to influence the teaching; outmoded methods and poor role models were replicated year on year. Utilisation of primary care for clinical curriculum delivery in some medical schools seems to reflect a desire for the specialty to 'play to its strengths' by delivering what is seen as most relevant to or best taught in that particular setting.
