Depending on the period one came in contact with Luis, one may have a different image popping up in one's mind--his full head of wavy hair, his bow tie, his worn-out Correos bag, his at times Santa-Claus style beard, his fondness of thick juicy steak, his green Brompton and black helmet, his "American" accent in Argentina, his "Argentinean" accent in Spain, his "Spanish" accent in Canada, Lluís or Louie or Lewis--, but all would remember his easy and charming smile, challenging and uncompromising questions, unselfish, thoughtful, and big-hearted generosity (in both time and efforts), his insistence in the importance of small details, his catholic taste and occasional stubbornness. And most of all, his dedication in education.
Born in Montevideo, Uruguay, Luis finished his studies at the Facultad de Medicina at the Universidad de la República. In 1961 he went to the United States as an N. I. H. fellow and worked under Vincent du Vigneaud at Cornell University Medical College, New York. Luis always remembered the Nobel Prize winner with fond memories, armed with anecdotes about this strong and unconventional character. During his postdoctoral fellowship, Luis carried out research on the relationship between the chemical structure and the biological action of neurohypophyseal peptides, oxytocin in particular.
Luis returned to Uruguay to continue his research in developing synthesis of oxytocin analogues as inhibitor of uterine contraction in premature labour at the Hospital de Clínicas in Montevideo. The technique he developed to separate small peptides gained him an invitation from Roger Guillmin to give a demonstration in his lab at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas.
In 1968, Luis was invited to join McMaster University in Canada to help establish a new Faculty of Medicine, where Problem-Based Learning (PBL) started, the promotion and advocation of which would eventually took over his professional activities.
At McMaster University, he continued his research on oxytocin and the placenta. In his lab, his team successfully isolated and characterized receptors for oxytocin in uterine muscle, mammary gland, and the hypothalamus. His researches were published in high impact factor journals such as Science and Journal of Biological Chemistry.
The Medical Research Council of Canada supported his research and awarded him the position of MRC Associate, a distinction given to a limited number of Canadian researchers. He became the Director of the multidisciplinary Reproductive Biology Programme at McMaster University, among many other high-level administrative responsibilities he took over throughout the years. In 1994, he was awarded Expert in Residence by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation for his work in curriculum development in North America.
Luis was given the MSU Life Time Achievement Award at his retirement in 1997, and became Professor Emeritus at McMaster University. However, his professional activities by no means ended. Since his engagement at McMaster University he had been travelling widely as consultant to advise many international institutions on curriculum development and to give PBL workshops. He was involved in assisting diverse faculties of medicine and academic programmes transition to using PBL as learning strategy, and to promote innovation in education. These activities he carried on until almost the end of his life, resulting in many publications and conference presentations.
In 1997, he became the Senior Consultant for a teaching development grant that involved a consortium of 3 universities in Hong Kong. At the same time, he continued consulting with the Escuela Universitaria de Enfermería de la Comunidad de Madrid in Leganés, an involvement that had started 3 years before, which led to the establishment of strong links in Spain, where he lived for 13 years at a later date.
In 1999, Luis moved to Bahía Blanca, Argentina, to help prepare the implementation of PBL for the new Carrera de Medicina at the Universidad Nacional del Sur. Again, his expertise was much sought for and he was engaged in numerous activities and workshops for universities in Argentina (including the Ministerio de Salud), Chile, and Brasil.
Two and a half years later, he was invited to join the WHO European Office for Integrated Health Care Services in Barcelona to promote innovation in medical education, to define the profile of the general practitioner, and to evaluate programmes to improve health-care systems, responsibilities that led him to Southeastern Europe and Central Asia. Furthermore, he played an important role in developing a fully integrated PBL programme at the Escola Universitària d'Infermeria de Vall d'Hebron in Barcelona, to which an act of recognition was held in his honour in 2004.
In subsequent years, Luis occupied several leadership positions as director, visiting professor, and coordinator in different educational units at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, and continued his consulting activities extensively in different parts of Spain (within Catalunya, in País Vasco, Andalucía, Islas Canarias, Murcia, and Castilla-La Mancha). He was a member of the steering committee for the redaction of the Llibre blanc de les professions sanitàries a Catalunya. In 2009, Luis was again involved in the establishment of a new Faculty of Medicine, this time at the Universitat de Girona, with the full implementation of PBL.
In 2014, Luis moved back to Canada with his family. He actively participated as Chair to numerous thesis defences at McMaster University. Since 2013, he had been engaged in the task of writing a fictional account of his vast experiences in educational institutions, under the title Relaciones peligrosas. It was a labour of love, full of philosophical and humanistic reflections of his thoughts, readings, and ideas, combined with the celebration of memories and conversations he shared with his wife and son. Some parts have been published in Álabe.
In 2017, Luis got very ill. After a few months of intense struggles, he passed away in the arms of his wife and his son, as he had wished. He was deeply loved and is dearly missed.
