The didactic sense of "Problem-based learning" in medical education

In this article we highlight the genuine sense of Problem-based learning as a methodology, 40 years after it was proposed and subsequently spread throughout the Iberian-American region. We support the didactic sense is not focused on solving those problems which are analysed in the tutorials, but on developing the cognition in terms of scientific thinking, and social skills such as abilities to communicate ideas, teamwork skills, responsibility, sharing and respecting others. Then, this didactic strategy involves several challenges for the tutor, for instance to learn how to cope and deal with the silence during the tutorials instead of intervening to fill the gaps, or how to do a defiant problematization and an inductive questioning.