Since the integration of professional (clinical) skills and basic sciences at the commencement of undergraduate medical training is still an innovative approach to medical education, the satisfaction of first and also third year students from such a course was evaluated. First year students were satisfied with this approach and demonstrated an ability to initiate by themselves an average of 1.6 hours of patient contact per week to further develop their professional skills. While third year students were able to increase this form of patient contact by 75%, they were less positive in their attitude towards their programme. Also, they had not demonstrated a significant improvement in their ability to deal with problems in this area. However, all students demonstrated an ability to discuss such problems with their peers. Differing expectations may account for some of the differences between the two student cohorts.