Endoscopy plays a major role in the evaluation of upper digestive haemorrhage. We evaluate the difficulties in the introduction of emergency endoscopy in a period of transition, regarding mentalities and errors generated by the learning curve. The study includes 512 consecutive patients admitted with upper gastrointestinal haemorrhage. We retrospectively evaluate some proposed efficiency criteria for the diagnostic endoscopy: the frequency of incomplete endoscopic evaluation (14%), frequency and causes of endoscopic diagnostic errors (3%), frequency of upper digestive haemorrhages with no detectable source (24.2%) and the indication of multiple endoscopic examination. We discuss the causes responsible for the generation of such problems as well as the dynamics of those during the evaluated period.