CONCLUSION: Future generalists may face barriers to appropriate mentorship. Even though female residents were more likely to go into GIM, those who chose to do so were less likely to find a potential mentor at MR. Residents from programs with a majority of specialist attendings at MR were more likely to be able to identify a potential mentor, regardless of their career plans. completed a questionnaire at the end of each continuity clinic session which asked them to assess the number of patients they saw during that day's clinic using a 5 point Likert-type scale (1=too few, 3=just right, 5=too many). Chi-square analyses, Student's t-tests and linear regression modeling was used to evaluate the variables that contributed to optimal scheduling. RESULTS: Residents completed questionnaires for 73% of their clinic sessions (N=105). Overall, they saw an average of 4.5 (SD=1.6) patients per session. 75% of the time, patient volumes below 3 patients were considered too low and volumes above 6 patients too high. During sessions where they rated patient volume as "just right" interns saw an average of 3.7 (SD=1.2) patients, second residents saw 4.6 (SD=0.7) patients and third year residents saw 5.3(SD=1.2). Linear regression modeling adjusted for resident track, gender and study period, confirmed that second and third year residents saw more patients than interns, 0.7* and 1.5* patients, respectively; that contact with less than 1.2* patients per session below average constituted``too few'' patients; and that contact with more than 1.8* patients above average constituted``too many''. (*p-values < 0.0001) CONCLUSION: Residents at all levels of training were comfortable seeing the minimum volume of patients recommended by the Internal Medicine Residency Review Committee (1 new and 3 follow-up patients). Patient volumes below 3 were too low and volumes above 6 were too high. In between these apparent limits, ideal volume depended on year of training, increasing by about 1 patient per session per year. While information from the medical education literature suggests that some aspects of the clinic educational program may suffer when patient volumes exceed 4 per session, we found that residents at more advanced levels of training preferred patient volumes higher than this. While one explanation for this observation is the higher skill level of the third year residents, it may also be that more advanced trainees derive greater educational benefit from direct patient care than from supplemental educational activities such as reviewing patient care with attendings. Important next steps will be to improve our understanding of the relationships between volume, type and complexity of patient visits, and the acquisition of expertise in specified aspects of ambulatory care, as well as to further delineate the relative educational value of the different clinic activities residents engage in. year. The aims of our study are to evaluate whether this clinical experience: 1) serves as a bridge between the basic science years and the clinical years, maintaining clinical skills and confidence, and 2) improves students' knowledge of Ambulatory Medicine. METHODS: At the end of the clinic year, the students took a standardized knowledge test and completed a validated questionnaire assessing their skills. MD/Ph.D. students who chose not to attend clinic and MD non-Ph.D. students also took the test and answered the questionnaire, serving as reference groups. To compare the groups, ANOVA was performed, followed by Tukey testing.