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Computerised virtual patients (VPs) are increasingly being used in medical education. With more use of this technology, there is a need to increase the knowledge of students’ experiences with VPs. The aim of the study was to elicit the nature of virtual patients in a clinical setting, taking the students’ experience as a point of departure. Thirty-one students used VPs as a mandatory part of an early clinical rotation in rheumatology. Using the qualitative approach of phenomenology, we interviewed these students and then analysed data regarding their experiences of VPs as a learning activity. The result shows that students perceived VP activities in relation to actual patients, the clinical context and other learning activities. The VPs represented typical clinical cases which encouraged clinical reasoning and allowed for decision making. The students experienced the activities as integrating biomedical knowledge …