Usually, the theoretical curricula in the "Surgical-Medical Nursing II" issue is evaluated by written tests. We offered our students the possibility of performing oral evaluation and we analysed the results of this alternative evaluation method. Voluntary students from three academic levels (group A) performed oral evaluation. To do that, they had five oral exams, one for each unit of the issue. Each evaluation had five questions that were given to the student with the command of being answered in 15 minutes. After that, these answers were explained orally. Two teachers supervised the test and score it according to previously established criteria. To evaluate the efficiency of this evaluation method, these results were compared with those obtained from students that had a written evaluation (group B). In addition, once the final score were obtained, 30 students from group A and 30 students from grup B were asked, without preparation, to perform a written test that contained 50 multiple- choice questions (evaluation 2). After the course finished, students from group A were asked to answer a questionare on their experience, job status and cv. We also measured the time required by the teachers to prepare and score both forms of evaluation. From 318 students (104 in 2002, 106 in 2003, and 108 in 2004), 75 chose oral evaluation (15 in 2002, 22 in 2003, and 36 in 2004) (group A). Percentage of failure in group A was 16% (12 students), and in group B 35, 39% (86 students). The average scores were: in group A, 7,83 (range 5,5-9,8), and in group B, 6,2 (range 5-8,1). In evaluation 2 students from group A got an average score of 6,9 and students from grup B got an everage score of 5,6. From the after-course questionare the most remarkable items was, the distress for speaking in public. Negative items included the time needed for studying. Positive items included the better score obtained in the oral tests and the better knowledge of the curricular materials. There were no statistically significant diffences between the groups on the cv or the job status. The average time needed for the teachers was 350 hours in group A and (for 86 students) 50 hours in group B (for 243 students).