from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). Innovations in medical education 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. Traditionally, the assessment of student learning in medical education has relied almost entirely on written exams. But there would seem to be more to being a competent practitioner than could ever be assessed using a paper and pencil test. Barrows' pioneering work on training actors to serve as simulated patients opened the door to a new way of evaluating clinical skills. Simulated patients could be used to test the students' interactional and problem-solving skills. This kind of "performance-based" assessment has now been incorporated into national licensure exams for all U.S. medical students. Notes External links Tribute in the Springfield, IL State Journal-Register Teaching and Learning in Medicine Southern Illinois University faculty Medical educators 1928 births 2011 deaths UC Berkeley College of Letters and Science alumni American neurologists People from Oak Park, Illinois Keck School of Medicine of USC alumni