early in his career, barrows conducted basic research on clinical reasoning processes. when he joined the faculty of medicine at mcmaster, the undergraduate curriculum was just in the process of being designed. barrows argued that the teaching of medicine should be organized in a way that emulates the reasoning of a skilled practitioner. rather than presenting information to students in a decontextualized, discipline-based way, barrows proposed that students should be allowed to engage new information in the context of solving authentic clinical problems. in the course of exploring a problem, students in a pbl curriculum identify deficiencies in their understanding and identify their own resources for redressing these deficiencies. this is thought to foster skills for lifelong learning.