SummaryIn order to evaluate the feasibility and usefulness of the list of problems, as a first approach to the P.O.M.R., 400 forms were completed for new patients, by assistants of an outpatient ward of the Department of Internal Medicine, University Hospital in Gent.The experiment showed that the elaboration of the list of problems requires special training of the physicians (definition and formulation of problems) and is time-consuming. A new type of problem had to be defined : questions from one consulting physician concerning specific aspects of the patient to another consultant. The anticipated communicability of the lists was seldom achieved.