BACKGROUND: Development of the reflective skills of medical students is an acknowledged objective of medical education. DESCRIPTION: Description of an educational exercise which uses an email-based process for developing the reflective skills of undergraduate medical students. Student quotations illustrate learning outcomes qualitatively. DISCUSSION: The process described is immediate, direct, linked to learning objectives, enables rapid responses to be given to the students individually, and is followed by group sharing of learning. It provides a rigorous and robust feedback loop for students. It is relatively economic for teachers and incidentally benefits curriculum design and evolution. The approach supports development of a reflective approach to learning.