Objective To provide a basis for formulating the content of clinical practice of evidence-based medicine course through investigating the basic situation in the training of the resident physician.Methods Resident physician were investigated who came to Peking University Third Hospital in 9th 2015 through the questionnaire.Results (1)120 questionnaires were sent and 112 efficient copies were recalled. The recovery rate is 93.3%. Resident physician were divided into two groups according to whether they took the theoretical course of evidence-based medicine or not. Group A had a total 72 physicians who had taken the theoretical course of evidence-based medicine, and group B had a total 40 physicians who had not. The differences about the literature retrieval and strategy between the two groups was compared. (1) There was no significant difference about literature retrieval activity, language used to search literature, common retrieval tools between the two groups. The residents in group A prefer to read guideline, review and high quality research, meanwhile, residents in group B prefer to read guideline, review, textbooks. The proportion of waiting for instructions from superior doctors in group B(10.0%) is higher than group A(1.4%). (3) The proportion of reading bilingual guideline in group A(54.2%) is higher than group B(40%). On the contrary, the proportion of reading Chinese guideline only in group B(52.5%) is higher than group A(36.1%). The situation and frequency in both groups are similar.Conclusions The learning of evidence-based medicine theory course improves the awareness of active retrieval literature to some extent. However, there is a gap between the theory and clinical practice. It is urgent to build a bridge course to combine them.