About Dr. Sola
Dr. Sola graduated from University of Buenos Aires Medical School in Argentina in 1973.
He soon moved to the USA to do pediatric residency at the University of Massachusetts in Worcester, where he was later named Senior Chief Resident in Pediatrics. He followed residency with a Neonatal Fellowship, attracted to the specialty due to many reasons, under the support and stimulation of Dr Braden Griffin. He completed post graduate studies at the University of California in San Francisco and the Cardio Vascular Research Institute. His educators and mentors were Roderic Phibbs, M.D., George A. Gregory, and Joseph A. Kitterman, and received direct education from Julius Comroe, William Tooley and John Clements also.
Before returning to his home country, he worked for about 2 years as a neonatologist in New Orleans (So. Baptist and Tulane). He became board certified in Pediatrics and also was among the first 800 physicians who became board certified in neonatal-perinatal medicine in the USA.
Once in Argentina, in 1982 he was very briefly employed by a private group practicing neonatology, collaborating with them in initiating the implementation of mechanical ventilation and more modern intensive care services. He soon became Chief of Newborn Services at the “Hospital de Clínicas” of the University of Buenos Aires. There, with a young group of estimated colleagues, he developed clinical neonatal intensive services and established mechanical ventilation; initiated training in neonatal medicine and, in 1985, he initiated the first neonatal fellowship program for MD’s with a completed pediatric residency. By 1988, a new National Pediatric Hospital (J.P. Garrahan Hospital) opened its doors. He was appointed Director of Neonatology there, and was asked to design the neonatal unit and supporting services. During the process he developed the concept of “Neonatal Recovery Unit”, where the parents of infants who no longer needed intensive care, but remained ill and had to remain hospitalized, would live with their infants, improving the transition from hospital to home and shortening hospital stay. This was an original and revolutionary concept at the time. Both at Hospital de Clínicas and at Garrahan Hospital he developed the first organized programs in the Nation for long term follow up of NICU graduates.
Of the MD’s he trained at both hospitals, the majority have established themselves in leadership positions, including becoming Chiefs of Neonatal Services in Buenos Aires and in many other cities throughout Argentina. A few of them have also become clinical investigators, and their original research work has been recognized internationally, being accepted as active members in the prestigious Society for Pediatric Research in the USA. He also trained physicians from other Latin American countries and they were then among the initiators of neonatal care in their countries of origin upon their return.
Furthermore, he initiated formal training and education for nurses in Argentina and South America in the neonatal field as early as 1983, being a strong advocate of nursing development and support, based on his conviction that nursing care is what makes a real difference in neonatal outcomes.
In Argentina, in 1985 he started in Buenos Aires an annual International Neonatal Post Graduate Course Conference (”Seminarios de Cuidados Intensivos Neonatales”) for pediatricians and nurses together in the same location and during the same dates. This was one of the activities that Dr. Sola planned being ahead of his time. In those courses, there were plenary sessions where nurses and parents of ill newborns where among the speakers, with doctors listening. The guest speakers were mainly form the USA and Europe and there were more than 1,000 participants in attendance from Argentina and neighboring South American Countries like Uruguay, Chile, Paraguay and others. These “Seminarios” continued until very recently under the direction of Drs Fariña, Rodriguez and Kurlat, with Dr. Sola always actively participating and collaborating in the organization.
Dr. Sola became full Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Buenos Aires in 1989. He had also created the “Fundación para el Recien Nacido” a non profit organization that could only assist poor families and ill newborns.
In 1991 Dr. Sola returned to the United States to become Director of Neonatal Clinical Services at the University of California in San Francisco. There he joined distinguished specialists in the field, was part of the Fetal Treatment Center led by Dr Michael Harrison and was interim director of the ECMO program. He also became progressively more involved in research in areas of neonatal neurology under the guidance of Donna M. Ferriero MD. After a few years, he became Professor of Pediatrics. He then moved on as Division Director of Neonatology at Cedars Sinai Medical Center and Professor of Pediatrics at UCLA. There he re-established the neonatal fellowship program, was given an endowed Chair and started to become involved in the study of neonatal oxygenation and outcome improvement.
Before joining his current position with MANA at Atlantic Health System in Morristown, NJ, he was tenured Professor of Pediatrics, and Obstetrics and Gynecology, at Emory University in Atlanta where he also held the Goddard Scholarship and directed the Division of Neonatal Perinatal Medicine, the neonatal laboratory for investigations of the mechanisms of injury and protection to the developing brain and the neonatal fellowship training program. During his tenure at Emory and under his leadership, that Division became more academically involved, the fellowship program grew exponentially, clinical and grant funding expanded notably and, most importantly, neonatal clinical outcomes improved.
Dr. Sola has been Director of Neonatology for 24 years, in two different countries and in six different large centers. In 2006 he decided that he had been Division Director for enough time and he decided to move on to a position with less administrative burden, where he is now. He then became the Director of Neonatal Research and Academic Affairs at MANA and AHS/MMH/OLH and Adjunct Professor of Neurosciences at UMDNJ.
Dr. Sola’s neonatal professional activities have encompassed education, research, administration and clinical care and by any objective evaluation, he has done pretty well in all. He is an “appassionato clinician” and still takes call in-house at night and on week-ends. He has developed and collaborated to develop innumerable neonatal centers, in Argentina early in his career, in Latin America and in the USA. He developed and established training programs; he has helped many physicians and nurses in their education, training and careers. He stimulates and collaborates with many throughout the America’s and Spain. Some of his colleagues and friends have called him “a trigger” that makes things happen. One of his former trainees, Dr. Adrian Soto, who subsequently became an excellent friend and unfortunately died at a young age because of cancer, was the first one to call Dr. Sola “an enzyme”, he who acts on a substrate and makes the final product much better. Clinical work and improved infants’ outcomes have been his passion and a driving stimulus.