Robert Archer Goodwin Jr. received the B.S. degree in 1936 from the University of Virginia and the M.D. degree in 1940 from Johns Hopkins University. Upon graduation, he served an internship and became an Assistant Resident at Thorndike Memorial Laboratory in Boston. He taught at Harvard University from 1941 to 1942 and later served as an army doctor in World War II, rising to the rank of major.

In 1946 he served as Chief Medical Resident under Dr. Hugh Morgan at Vanderbilt. After postdoctoral training, Goodwin returned to Vanderbilt in 1947 as Instructor and achieved academic rank as Assistant Professor in 1951, Associate Professor in 1956, and Professor in 1974. He served as Chief of the Pulmonary Disease Service of the Veterans Administration Hospital in Nashville in 1952.

Goodwin was appointed Professor Emeritus at Vanderbilt in 1981, and he passed away in 2001. Goodwin built a distinguished scientific bibliography composed almost entirely of classical works on such subjects as histoplamosis, tuberculosis, and patterns of immune response to these diseases.