Biography - Fundación Dr. Carlos López Somolinos

Doctor  Carlos López Somolinos

He was born in Loíza Aldea on December 14, 1926 on a large farm on the banks of the Gran Río de Loíza called La Virginia. His father died when he was still a child and his widowed mother moved to Santurce to offer a better education to her four boys and one daughter. Later, the family moved to Mayagüez so that his sons could study at the Colegio de Agricultura y Artes Mecánicas de Mayagüez (RUM), where Carlos graduated with a degree in Agronomy.

In 1950, he arrived in Jayuya to work in the Agricultural Extension Department. In that town, he met his future wife, Olga Atienza Nicolau, whom he married in 1954. After two years, he decides to continue with his great dream of becoming a doctor, so he gets a scholarship and moves with his family to Santiago de Compostela, Spain, where they stay for 6 years. There, his third son was born. Back in Puerto Rico, he did his internship at the Rio Piedras Medical Center, and from there he moved to Harvard University in Boston to begin his studies in Ophthalmology.

Dr. López Somolinos always emphasized education as the basis and foundation of our social problems. His selfless dedication to forming better human beings inspired us to perpetuate his work through this Foundation.

He returns to the Medical Sciences Campus to do his residency and internship. Finally, once he finished his specialty, he developed his private practice in the city of Ponce, where he also worked at the Ponce Medical Center Hospital. When the Ponce School of Medicine was founded, he joined its faculty. He continued his private practice with great passion and love for his patients, even until shortly before his death.

Within an intense professional activity, he always had time for civic activities. From his time in Jayuya, where he contributed to the creation of the first Jayuya Lions Club; then in Río Piedras, he was the president of a chapter of the Rotary Club, an organization of which he was also a member in the city of Ponce. In Ponce, he belonged to the Knights of Columbus. In 1977, he chaired the organizing committee for the celebration of the Centennial of the City of Ponce by royal decree. As a good father, he was involved in the education of his children and was instrumental in the administration of the Cristo Rey Academy, where his children studied. He cooperated in the administration and development of the Academy for more than 20 years.

He always kept his love for the countryside and nature, which he greatly enjoyed in his beloved farm in the mountains of Aibonito. All his life he was a lover of sports and his greatest enjoyment was tennis, being even one of the organizers of the first Tennis Club of La Rambla in Ponce. He balanced all this physical activity with his equally intense love for reading, both in his medical profession, as well as history, Puerto Rican politics and literature in general. His greatest virtue was his ability to transmit a great human quality, the result of his great love for the Catholic Church and his deep religious spirituality.