L. Fernando Gonzalez, M.D.

L. Fernando Gonzalez, M.D., is a cerebrovascular neurosurgeon trained in both open vascular surgery and minimally invasive endovascular approaches. He treats patients with vascular blockages, malformations and ruptures in the brain and spine, including aneurysms, strokes and arteriovenous malformations. He also specializes in delivering chemotherapy through the arteries of the brain for treatment of certain eye cancers, such as retinoblastomas — the most common eye cancer in children — and lacrimal gland carcinomas. Dr. Gonzalez sees patients at The Johns Hopkins Hospital and Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center.

Dr. Gonzalez earned his medical degree from Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogota, Colombia, where he also completed residency training in neurosurgery. He completed a neurosurgery research fellowship at Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona, with a focus on skull base, vascular and microanatomy microsurgery. Dr. Gonzalez continued his training at Barrow by completing a second residency, during which he pursued additional fellowships in spine surgery, endovascular neurosurgery, and cerebrovascular and skull base surgery.

Dr. Gonzalez is widely published in his field and actively pursues novel approaches to treatment. He invented an aspiration catheter with an attached guidewire, and a surgical retractor for minimally invasive brain surgery. He is also a co-inventor of a direct cerebral cooling device that allows clinicians to decrease cerebral temperature to protect the brain when needed after cardiac arrest, severe trauma or large strokes.