Objective　To understand the effects of reform on clinical teaching taking patient's symptoms as the starting point and to investigate students' recognition degree towards this reform and their information feedback. Methods　Totally 42 clinical students of the second clinical medical college （the second class） of China Three Gorges University were enrolled in the study and clinical teaching taking patient's symptoms as the starting point was conducted. Thirty-nine clinical students of the second clinical medical college （the fourth class） were enrolled as control group and traditional method was conducted. Effects of clinical teaching were evaluated by examination score and students' recognition degree towards this reform was investigated by self-made questionnaire and information feedback. Data were processed using SPSS 13.0 statistical software； t tests were used to compare students' scores of theoretical test and skill test； P < 0.05 signifies that the difference is statistically significant. Results　There was no statisti-cal difference in theoretical test score between experiment group and control group（P＞0.05）. Skill test scores were higher in experiment group than in control group（P<0.01）. Students highly admitted this teaching mode and they thought that this mode can improve their self-study ability， clinical practice skill and clinical thinking ability without influencing their theoretical learning. Conclusions　Practice of clin-ical teaching taking patient's symptoms as the starting point is feasible， which can increase scores of skill test significantly without influencing scores of theoretical test.