Clinical teachers agree that familiarity and competence in handling common emergencies are essential for medical graduates. Not all teachers recognize that possession of knowledge alone is insufficient to ensure competence. For those teachers seeking to teach and evaluate clinical problem-solving the Patient Management Problem (PMP) may be of value. In this, the first of two papers on PMPs, the approach to teaching clinical management is explored, and, in the second paper, the technical aspects of PMP will be outlined.