Objective　To evaluate the effect of discussion-based teaching pattern in clinical noviciate of general surgery. Methods　Two hundred and ten students majoring in clinical medicine were randomly divided into the trial group and the control group during clinical noviciate of general surgery．There were 105 students in each group. The discussion-based teaching pattern and traditional teaching pattern were performed in the trial and control groups， respectively. After the clinical novici-ate of general surgery was completed， the teaching effects of both groups were evaluated by the exam-ination performance analyses and the questionnaire-based survey． Student's t-test and χ2 test were used in statistical analysis. Reults　The rate of satisfaction with the teaching pattern was 88.6% in the trial group and 70.5% in control group（P<0.05）. The mean scores in the trial group and control group were 80.3±9.2 and 74.5±11.3， respectively （P<0.05）. The pass rate of examination in the trial group and control group were 97.1% and 88.6%， respectively （P<0.05）. The excellence rate in the examination was 24.8% in the trial group and 12.4% in control group （P<0.05）. The overwhelming majority of stu-dents in the trial group thought that the discussion-based teaching pattern had more advantages in im-proving students' learning initiative and enthusiasm， ability to analyze and solve problems， etc.， acord-ing to the questionnaire-based survey. Conclusions　Discussion-based teaching is an effective teach-ing pattern and superior to the traditional teaching pattern.