General practice/family medicine in basic (undergraduate) medical education is best taught in the practice, preferably as one to one teaching.

In this paper we use the term 'attachment' for a longer period (usually at least more than one week) of guided activities in a general practice setting; other terms in this context are 'preceptorship' or 'clerkship'.¹

This list does not deal with the questions of whether and how to decide on an attachment program; readers will not find arguments to do so. Instead, it is meant for use after taking the decision for such a program.

The checklist may help organisers of attachment programs to think of all aspects and difficulties an attachment in general practice in the practice setting may have before starting the program, or it may as an organisational help improve an existing program.

Many questions and aspects in this reminder list will be answered different by different readers, depending on the educational culture, the setting and the needs of their teaching. Therefore only few recommendations are given by the authors, of which most are experience based. The aim is to help the reader to become aware of the complexity of such an attachment, not to pretend the only possible solution.

Additional literature references may help users of this list to get more ideas, experiences and information on certain aspects; they are usually restricted to easily accessible sources (www, library).