After-hours care is an essential ingredient of family practice and other primary care disciplines. In various countries, between three and 70 per cent of all after hours calls are handled over the telephone without the patient being seen. Little medical education is provided to train medical students or physicians to deal with clinical problems that are more frequent after surgery hours and with communication and decisionmaking over the telephone. An after-hours record card, developed by the authors, has been used over the past three years for clinical care and educational activities.