The national college of teaching general practitioners advocates a compulsory tutorial system which enables an assessment of skills in order to achieve certification. This was implemented in 2010 in Grenoble. With a view to getting more students involved, we collected their expectations as regards the tutorial system as well as their way of picturing their relationship with their tutor in the early months of their DES studies. A qualitative approach in which we resorted to focus groups enabled us to collect the residents' expectations. The talks were recorded, written up, made anonymous and then analyzed. Residents consider the tutorial system as a backing up which enables them to set up a theoretical and practical training plan. They expect some sort of assistance organizing their professional and private life. They question themselves about how to set up their own business and how to build their professional network. The tutorial system is experienced as an apprenticeship ; residents wish for support. The way the tutors are perceived is heterogeneous. However trust and identification rank first. Residents do not see their tutor as an assessor. The surveys show that when the residents are better informed and when the tutorship programme is clearly defined, the residents are more likely to go along the system. General practitioners are likely to come down with a burn-out, the tutor plays a part in preventing such crises. Residents are still unfamiliar with primary care ; their tutor's experience can be very valuable. The tutorial system is considered as an apprenticeship, and is sometimes a first step towards teaching. The issues of the identification and the matching of the tutor-tutored student couple remain the crux of the debates. A flexible system should be favoured. In order to improve the residents' support for the system, it seems to us that it would be profitable to dedicate a special time to the encounter between tutors and tutored students. It would be fruitful to familiarize the residents with the tutorial system from the very beginning of their DES studies, and to emphasize the fact that being assessed by their tutor is a real asset for their certification. Eventually it would be beneficial to know whether the tutorial system lived up to the residents' expectations, once their DES studies are over.