In Switzerland undergraduate medical training has undergone several reforms over the last decade which also affected the integration, the structure as well as the learning content of the so-called ¡°Wahlstudienjahr?(clinical electives year). The first section of this paper gives a short overview of the current status of the clinical electives year in Switzerland. In the second section some descriptive data concerning the Faculty of Medicine in Zurich are summarized to exemplify current and future aspects of the quality development in the clinical electives year in Switzerland.