Objective To explore the application of action learning in internal medicine clinical clerkship for medical students. Methods The research subjects were 70 medicine students from Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine in the internal medicine department of the People's Hospital of Wenjiang in 2021. Using random number table method, the subjects were divided into the experimental group (n=35) and the control group (n=35).The students in the experimental group adopted the action learning method the control group adopted the traditional clerkship teaching method. Then, we compared the trainees' performance, evaluation on the learning effect and satisfaction on the teaching methods among the two groups. Student t-test and chi-square test were used for statistical analyses. Results The theory test scores of the experimental group (87.25±7.77) after clerkship were significantly better than those of the control group(74.58±9.85). The evaluation of students in the experimental group in improving their independent learning ability, language expression ability, knowledge comprehension ability, teamwork ability and problem analysis ability were higher than that of the control group [33(94.3%) vs.20 (57.1%), 32(91.4%) vs. 22(62.9%), 34(97.1%) vs. 27(77.1%), 32(91.4%) vs. 22(62.9%), 33(94.3%) 24(68.6%)], and the differences were statistically significant (all P<0.05). The satisfaction of the experimental group with the teaching method was higher than that of the control group [33(94.3%) vs. 25(71.4%)], and the difference between the two groups was statistically significant (P<0.05). Conclusions The action learning method is helpful to improve the understanding and mastery of internal scientific knowledge of undergraduate students in clinical medicine, and has been recognized by students.