ABSTRACT
All educational institutions which train professionals must make decisions about what is ‘important’ enough to be in the curriculum. The curriculum of a medical school, almost by definition, outlines those aspects of health and disease which the faculty believes are educational priorities. In a problem-based learning environment, the health problems chosen for study define the basis of the curriculum; the way in which problems are studied (eg from the perspective of organ systems) defines the curricular emphasis. Given the immense variety of health problems which could be studied, educational planners need a method for choosing which problems must be included in the curriculum, and which other problems may be de-emphasized or left out entirely.
