Sótero del Río Gundián

Sótero del Río Gundián (29 March 1900 – 10 May 1969) was a Chilean physician and surgeon, academic, researcher, businessman, professional association leader, and politician. He served as a minister of State under the presidents Juan Esteban Montero, Juan Antonio Ríos, Gabriel González Videla (all of the Radical Party), and the independent Jorge Alessandri.

Biography Family and education He was born in the Chilean commune of Cauquenes on March 29, 1900, the third of four children of Rafael del Río del Pozo and Avelina Gundián del Río. He completed his primary and secondary education at the Liceo de Hombres de Cauquenes (today Liceo Antonio Varas), and then studied medicine at the University of Chile, graduating as a physician and surgeon in 1922, with a thesis titled Diatermia. He worked at Hospital del Salvador in Santiago, Chile, where he had completed his internship. In 1924, he traveled to Europe to study, particularly in France, Austria and Germany. He returned to Chile a second time to work at Hospital San José in the capital, specializing in phthisiology.

Professional career He practiced as a physician at the sanatorium El Peral and at Hospital Barros Luco Trudeau in Santiago, Chile.

Two months later, on November 15, Juan Esteban Montero again assumed as Vice President and once more appointed him to head the Ministry of Social Welfare, remaining in that position through December 4, when Montero took office as President of the Republic. In his ministerial management he organized shelters and soup kitchens, due to the severe financial situation inherited from the first administration of President Carlos Ibáñez del Campo. With the overthrow of Montero by coup d'état on June 4, 1932, he was removed from office.

Later, under the government of Radical President Juan Antonio Ríos, on June 7, 1943, he returned for a third time to head the health portfolio, then called the Ministry of Salubrity, Welfare and Social Assistance, serving until February 3, 1946. In December 1948, a fire occurred at the School of Medicine of the University of Chile, and through the Sociedad Constructora de Establecimientos Hospitalarios—which he chaired—activities were carried out to complete the construction of Hospital Universidad José Joaquín Aguirre. and in that role he faced the devastating 1960 Valdivia earthquake in the central-southern zone of the country. During his tenure he was substituted on several occasions: between April 28 and May 18, 1960, by the minister of foreign affairs Enrique Ortúzar; and between November 6 and 10 of that same year, again by Ortúzar, then Minister of Justice.