Database Design

Hi, I am using VB 6.0 and an Access 2000 database. I will have a record that will have for instance 1) Patient name 2) Address 3) List of medical problems about 5 items long coming from a list box 4) Another list of medical problems 5) Another list of problems 5) Yet another list of medical problems ect.

My question is: would it be faster and better to create seperate tables for each list of problems? I could reference each patient with a unique PIN number that is already generated. Or should I have one large table and insert a new record for each problem?

i don't know about faster but i think it would be better. than you can have an unlimited number of medical problems (not sure that's a good thing ). is there a reason why 3, 4, 5, and 5 need to be different tables?

I was grouping medical problems: table for group one has PIN number, study date and problem, table 2 has PIN number, study date and a different set of problems. There may be one problem in table one and three problems in table two. The original table has only one table and thousands of blank fields. This is what I am trying to avoid.