Life outside of work
Dr. Sola is married to Marta R. Rogido, also a board certified neonatologist.
His children are Mariana, married to Agustin Pinto, Carolina, Augusto J., married to Male Wust and Ignacio P., married to Sole Querol. Dr. Sola has five grandchildren between the ages of two and 11 years of age. They are Michelle Blanco, Pedro, Mateo and Guadalupe Pinto and Augusto Sola. The recent pictures show them enjoying with grandpa.
A happy Grandpa of five
Of interest is that Michelle (now 11), Pedro (5) and Guadalupe (2) were very ill during their newborn period. The three required specialized treatment in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and Michelle and Guadalupe also needed extended care after discharge from the NICU. Fortunately, they are all beautiful and healthy children after a rough time. Dr. Sola was up many nights taking care of his three grand children. He considers that these experiences have allowed him to improve his practices, better understand the significance of details in achieving better health care outcomes, and focused even further on family centered or oriented care in the NICU. He feels that maybe this was among the unknown reasons why he chose to become a neonatologist many years before. (Acknowledgements »)
Michelle, Pedro and Mateo ready to play
Dr. Sola has recently lectured on several occasions on “Neonatal Intensive Care as Seen by a Neonatology Director of 24 years, Grandfather of Three Critically Ill Newborns”. He feels blessed for having been allowed to help his daughters and grandchildren in such trying circumstances for them, both as a grandfather and a well trained clinical neonatologist. Dr. Sola considers this the most important award life has given him, well above his success in his professional career and his abundant professional contributions.
Dr. Sola enjoys participating in education, and this occupies a significant portion of his life outside of work. His educational activities are many and are listed here.
Mariana and Michelle getting the other
four “picture ready”
He used to play soccer (as left wing) and rugby (as scrum half) actively in his youth. Two good friends, Juan de Elía and Freddy Magnasco, taught Augusto to horse back ride during childhood, when they invited Augusto to their ranches for the school summer or winter vacations. Juan also introduced him to the game of polo at Estancia San Martin. He, his family and relatives lent him horses and Augusto started to play. Dr. Sola never became a really good polo player, but he played many matches and tournaments in low handicap teams with his two friends. Pepino Gutierrez, an uncle of Juan and Dr. Sola’s former father in law, was a renowned polo player of the time, and also supported gave him some good advice and “private lessons” also.
After graduation from medical school Dr. Sola didn’t play polo for over 20 years. Why and how he took polo again is a story is of neonatal care, love, friendship and gratitude. In brief, in his process of returning to Argentina (read a summary of Dr. Sola’s career) the first preterm critically ill baby he cared for was Michelle, a frail beautiful girl born at the end of 1981 with less than 1,200 gm, with significant respiratory insufficiency and extremely high risk for mortality.
The Sola family
Then, there were no ventilators, no individuals trained and versed in artificial neonatal ventilation and no trained neonatal nurses. Dr. Sola put an old ventilator together and stayed by this girl for five consecutive days, and nights. A lot of people helped and learned, and this was the initiation of organized respiratory care in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Michelle survived and after a few months went back home, since her mother was from North America and her parents lived in the USA. They had come to Argentina just for a few weeks, since Michelle’s father was playing at the best polo tournament of the world, the Argentine Open. At that time Michelle’s father was a rising polo star who later became the best player of the USA for many years, with handicap 10, and inducted to the Hall of Fame.
Dr. Sola and Michi Gracida, celebrating
after 25 years in the NICU
Mimi and Memo Gracida, Michelle’s parents kept in touch for a while. Michelle was growing completely healthy. They saw each other and Dr. Sola saw Michelle growing on a few of occasions. Upon his return to the USA, after several years of lost contact, Mimi found Dr. Sola and called him at UCSF. He went to visit them in Florida.
Michelle was 13 and was a beautiful teen-ager, already taller than Dr. Sola. It was an emotional time for all of them. Memo asked Dr. Sola to jump on a horse and go and “stick and ball” with him and others in his group.
Dr. Sola playing polo
What a “dream come true” was for Dr. Sola to ride again, practice again and to do so with the polo super star of the times. Mimi and Memo lent him horses, saddles, polo mallets and more. And this is the beginning of how Dr. Sola got back into polo. One day, a few months later, they shipped two polo ponies with complete polo equipment, from Florida to San Francisco as a gift by surprise. Dr. Sola had no clue where to place the horses!
Since then Dr. Sola had played polo practices and low handicap tournaments in Santa Rosa, Los Angeles, and Indio in California, and also in “La Herradura” tournaments, organized by Memo Gracida in Palm Beach, with high handicap teams. Dr. Sola was unable to play during his tenure at Emory, because work demands left very limited time and he had to balance it between family or sports. He now rides and practices “stick and ball” again when he goes to Argentina.
Dr. Sola playing polo
He just visited his old friend Juan de Elía in Estancia San Martin, the place where Dr. Sola started to learn about all this 50 years ago and where he spent quire a bit of time until 35 years ago. After 5 years of not playing a polo match or a practice, he played “Fun Family Polo” three days these past January at Estancia San Martin with his friend Juan. It was a great and fun reunion after many years, with affects, emotions and friendship, all around polo. Dr. Sola surely hopes to start playing more regularly again sometime in the future.