Born on 24 September 1931 in Chillán to Francisco de la Fuente Gómez and María Gaete Valenzuela. He married Alda Orietta Sandoval Arroyo, with whom he had two children; one of them, Camilo, became the director and a researcher at the National Institute of Neurology and Neurosurgery in Mexico.
He completed his primary and secondary education at School No. 1 and the Liceo de Hombres in Chillán. He graduated as a medical surgeon from the University of Chile on 8 January 1958. In Mexico, he pursued a Master’s degree in Social Medicine at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (UAM).
He practiced medicine in Chillán before going into exile in Mexico, where he worked in several healthcare institutions and founded the medical school at UAM’s Xochimilco campus, serving as a professor from 1975 to 2005.
His political activity began as president of the Student Federation of Ñuble at the University of Chile. After the 11 September 1973 coup, he was briefly detained at the Military School before going underground. On 12 October 1973, he was granted asylum at the Mexican embassy and subsequently went into exile in Mexico, where he lived for over four decades. In the 1980s, he served as political secretary of the Socialist Party of Chile in Mexico and helped found the Salvador Allende Gossens Association.
He received several recognitions, including awards from the Chilean Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology (1962) and the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, whose graduating class named an award after him (2001–2005 cohort). In 2008, he published his autobiography, Detrás de la Memoria. He continued to write and publish columns and poetry until late in life.
He died on 5 October 2015 in Mexico City, remembered by his peers for his courageous words, moral clarity, and political insight.
