[2] Shortly after, he was appointed secretary of the Faculty of Medicine of Barcelona, and in November 1901, he became rector of the UB by Royal Decree, a position from which he resigned in 1905.

Already in 1875, together with the pharmacist Francesc Benessat, he founded the Medical Hygiene Center, a pioneering entity in Spain that was born with the desire to provide disinfection, embalming, vaccination services and the dissemination of prophylactic professional practices in accordance with the advances of science.

[2] In April 1879, Rodríguez was appointed co-director of the Sant Boi de Llobregat Asylum, a position that he held for three years until his resignation in February 1882.

[2] In 1883, he presented a report entitled El Manicomio: Notas clínicas, which was based in his experiences at the Asylum, in the First Spanish Frenopátic Competition which was organized by professor Joan Giné i Partagàs and held in Barcelona.

[2] Together with Bartomeu Robert, Ignasi Valentí, Antoni Mola, and Artur Galceran, he formed part of the review board of presentations.

[2] Rodríguez was a prolific author of several texts and medical works, such as Fiebre amarilla (1870), Tratamiento del hidrocele (1876), and of an obituary of the doctor Lluís Comenge i Ferrer (1917).

[2] In 1878, Rodríguez was one of the founders of the Gaceta Médica de Cataluña, a fortnightly magazine that he directed for over forty years, from the publication of its first issue until his death in 1919.

[1][2] This magazine, which has great influence in the country, was published until 1921, when it took the name of Gaceta Médica Catalana to continue being the showcase for current affairs in the different medical fields, both national and international.

[2] Rodríguez created a section on Hygiene with original articles such as the one that he himself wrote: Estadística Demogràfica Sanitària de Catalunya, a work that can be considered the very first medical statistics done in Catalonia.

[2][11] A year later, in Barcelona, a National Committee was set up with the aim of perpetuating the memory of Professor Rafael Rodríguez Méndez, which projected several tributes, such as placing plaques on the houses where he lived, the request for a street of the Ciutat Comtal and other activities that, in the end, were not carried out.