Dario Angel Ugarte

This brief summary of Dario A. Ugarte’s life was written in December 10, 2023 with the collaboration of my surviving wife Amanda Patino of 47 years for my ten children, twenty-two grand-children and six great-grand-children.

I want just to make a short narrative of my life. The idea is for my children and grand-children to get to know certain facts unknown by them or in case they heard pieces here and there, this brief summary could inform them of some unknown circumstances that took place in my 100 years of life.

In 1919 there was a National Academic University Reform in Peru which caused a general students revolt in Lima.

My father, Luis Angel Ugarte Ocampo, was studying medicine at San Marcos University and due to the constant students protests, his studies were interrupted on more than one occasion. In 1920 my grand-father, Angel Ugarte Cano, decided to send my father to Madrid, Spain to finish his medical studies. My father graduated as a Medical Doctor in 1923.

While my father was in Madrid, he met my mother, Angela Perez Donaire. Before my father went to Paris to do his fellowship in Internal Medicine, they got married. They moved to Paris in November 1923 where they spent their honeymoon. I was therefore “made in Paris” as a “honeymoon baby”.

During my father’s specialization in Internal Medicine in Paris at La Sorbonne University, he attended lectures dictated by the famous French physician and bacteriologist Georges-Fernand Widal. Widal in one of his studies discovered the blood test that helps detect typhoid or enteric fever in the body.

After my father completed his Internal Medicine training in Paris, he went back to Peru along with my mother. So I was “made in Paris” but “delivered” in Cuzco, Peru in August 2, 1924 at my grand-father’s home situated in San Andres Street # 333. Shortly after I was born, my parents established their residence in San Andres # 273.

My father opened his private practice in Cuzco but he never charged a fee to his patients because they were his friends. His patients used to pay my father for his medical care with chicken, vegetables and groceries since my father refused to charge them for his medical services.

My father closed his medical office and began to work exclusively with the Ministry of Public Health in Cuzco. While working in Public Health he was in charge of the malaria campaign. The Rockefeller Foundation offered him a position to research the origins of the Malaria infestation in the Cuzco area; especially in the Valley of La Convention and Valley of Lares. The Rockefeller Foundation’s primary goal was to exterminate the Malaria infestation in Peru.

My father worked conducting the investigation of how and why the inhabitants of the different small towns in the Cuzco area were becoming sick or infected with Malaria. He taught me how to recognized the larvae of the mosquito Anopheles which is the carrier of Malaria.

My father used to take me with him on some of his research trips. I remember that in one of his excursions, I was probably 7 years old, he took me to visit the ruins of Machu Picchu. My father and I climbed the mount of Machu Picchu by foot. My father already knew there were some Inca ruins in that site.

The Public Health Ministry in conjunction with the Rockefeller Foundation offered my father a position as Medical Head of the Sanitary Brigade #3. This was a branch of the Public Health covering all of Peru.

My father continued to be in charge of the Malaria campaign focused in the Departments of Apurimac, Cuzco, Madre de Dios, Arequipa, Moquegua and Tacna. It is then when my family moved from Cuzco to Lima.

In Lima, I attended the San Augustine High School. After I finished my secondary school, I went to premedical school in San Fernando which is a branch of San Marcos University. I graduated from San Marcos Medical in General Medicine in April of 1950. After I graduated from medical school, I was offered a scholarship by the Fulbright Foundation which I declined because my friend Alfredo Piazza told me about a vacancy in Internal Medicine at Bon Secours Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland.

Initially, my goal was to go to Johns Hopkins Hospital to work with Doctor Emil Novak. I knew of Doctor Novak because in Lima, Peru, we used his books to study Obstetrics and Gynecology. Doctor Emil Novak was known worldwide because he wrote the most important books in Gynecology as well in Gynecologic Pathology.

I arrived in Baltimore in 1951 with a contract from Bon Secours Hospital. When I began working at Bon Secours Hospital, I found out that Doctor Emil Novak brought most of his private patients to Bon Secours Hospital instead to Johns Hopkins Hospital. It is then, when I decided to stay at Bon Secours Hospital and switched from the Department of Internal Medicine to the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

While working at Bon Secours Hospital as a Medical Resident, I had the opportunity to get to know Dr. Novak as a doctor as well as a person. When he was admitted as a patient at Bon Secours Hospital, he used to invite us, the residents, to have a cocktail with him. It was then he educated us on how to drink dry martinis.

Since Bon Secours Hospital did not have the complete training program in OB/GYN, I accepted a position in the Department of OB/GYN at Saint Agnes Hospital where I completed my specialization.

After completing my residency, I returned to Peru to work in the planning, organization and implementation of the obstetrics and gynecological service of the new Hospital del Empleado of the Peruvian Social Security System.

I returned to Maryland in 1957, where I joined the medical staff at Saint Agnes Hospital.

For the next 38 years, I brought all my private OB-GYN patients to Saint Agnes Hospital. Throughout my medical career in Baltimore and Peru, I have delivered approximately five thousand babies. In April of 1995, I retired from practicing medicine.

I want to bring to the present the following summary:

The first generation in medicine in the Ugarte family in Peru was my father who dedicated all his medical knowledge to work in Public Health and was considered a first Pioneer in this field.

The second generation in medicine was his son Dario A. Ugarte, who studied and graduated as General Surgeon in 1950 in Lima, Peru and in 1951, he moved to the United States to pursue a specialization in Internal Medicine.

The third generation is my son Marcos Antonio Ugarte who finished medical school and specialized in General Surgery at the University Maryland Hospital.

I have a daughter, Ana Cristina Ugarte, who graduated as a technician in Medical Radiology and worked for over forty years in the Radiology field. She is currently retired and lives in Hanover, PA.

The fourth generation are four of my grand-children whose father is Marco Antonio Ugarte and they are:

Isabela Ugarte-Greenholt who graduated as a P.A.

Armando Ugarte who is attending medical school at Howard University in Washington D.C.

Mateo Ugarte who is attending medical school at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

Eduardo Ugarte who is doing premedical studies at Loyola University and is planning to go to medical School.

Jose Dario Ugarte, whose father is Pedro Ugarte works as a fireman and is a paramedic in California.

I am the father of ten children who are: Juan Luis Ugarte, Pedro Jose Ugarte, Miguel Angel Ugarte, Marie Elena Ugarte, Ana Cristina Quinn, Susana Pilar Burton, Marcos Antonio Ugarte, Carlos Enrique Ugarte, Margarita Rosa Ugarte, Micaela Angela Ugarte.