Following the letter by Colombo and Parisi [1], first of all we thank the authors for their positive comments on our earlier editorial [2]. Actually, their letter adds interesting information from Lombardy (by far the largest Italian Region), collected through a survey on trainers and trainees in general practice. The results highlighted a major difference in the educational aims between tutors and their younger colleagues, the former being more focussed on the importance of developing relational skills with patients, and the latter on their clinical and technical skills (e.g.
