Neurosurgeon Gonzalez-Arias joins FIU Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine


MIAMI – Dr. Sergio Gonzalez-Arias, medical director of the Baptist Hospital Neuroscience Center and chief of the division of neurosurgery at Baptist Hospital of Miami, has joined FIU’s Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine as chair of the department of neurosurgery.

Gonzalez-Arias will oversee the neurosurgical training of FIU’s medical students, coordinating their neurosurgery clinical rotations at all of FIU’s affiliated hospitals. Baptist Hospital is part of Baptist Health South Florida, one of FIU’s clinical partners.

“As a leader in his field who has blazed a trail in the multidisciplinary approach to medicine, Dr. Gonzalez-Arias is a wonderful addition to our faculty,” said Dr. John Rock, founding dean of the Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine. “With his passion for teaching, he will play an important role in the medical education of our students.”

Gonzalez-Arias, 61, is an expert on minimally invasive spine surgery and stereotactic radiosurgery – a method that uses precisely focused radiation to treat tumors and abnormal growths in the brain.

He also helped develop a department of neurosciences at Baptist Hospital, a unique department that brings together doctors from related specialties such as neurology, neurosurgery and neuroradiology. It is the multidisciplinary approach to medicine, at the core of the College of Medicine’s vision, that attracted Gonzalez-Arias to FIU.

“It is often very difficult to offer specialty patients the optimum care unless you’re involving multiple specialists,” he said. “The vision and the mission that the College of Medicine has put forth is without a doubt the most logical one for the education of young men and women who want to become physicians. Neurosurgery will be an important component of their medical training, regardless of what medical field they ultimately choose.”

Gonzalez-Arias, a native of Buenavista, Marianao, Cuba who grew up in New York, received his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Zaragoza in Zaragoza, Spain.

He has two grown children, Veronica and Sergio III, and two grandsons, Raul Andres and Gabriel. He and his wife, Maria, live in Coral Gables.

A wine enthusiast, Gonzalez-Arias collects wine and produces it in the Napa Valley under the Soñador Cellars label.

Media Contact:  Madeline Baró at 305-348-2234.

Comments are closed.