This study examined students' experiences of university medical education, approaches to learning, and comprehension of learning tasks. It used semi-structured interviews with 60 preclinical and clinical medical students. Half of the students attended Gothenburg University (Sweden), which employed a conventional discipline-based curriculum, while the other half attended Linkoping University (Sweden), which employed a problem-based learning (PBL) curriculum. The results indicated that PBL students seemed to have experienced a more flexible, meaningful, and enjoyable education compared with their counterparts from the traditional program. PBL students showed an inclination toward adopting comprehension approaches both in general and to specific learning tasks, whereas the conventional students' propensity was toward reproductive strategies. As regards the students' comprehension of learning tasks, the results indicated that the students from both programs performed more or less equally. Appendices outline the course of study for medical students at Linkoping University and Gothenburg University. A list of Linkoping Studies in Education and Psychology is also included. (Contains 139 references.) (MDM)