Dr. Luis Velasquez-Zarate, pediatric pathologist and cytopathologist, has joined the faculty of the Medical College of Georgia and Children’s Hospital of Georgia.

Pediatric pathologists enable the appropriate diagnosis and treatment of conditions, some of which are unique to children, that can arise during their fetal development, and include problems like unusual liver tumors, tumors of undeveloped nerve cells called neuroblastomas, blood vessel malformations and congenital heart defects. Cytopathologists use cells typically obtained through a minimally invasive approach like a fine needle aspiration to rapidly identify cell abnormalities that indicate problems like cancer or infections, a skill set Velasquez-Zarate will be using for both children and adults at MCG and the Augusta University Health System.

“We are happy to welcome Dr. Velasquez-Zarate back to the MCG Department of Pathology to support the expanding diagnostic and treatment services we provide to children at CHOG,” says Dr. Ravindra Kolhe, interim chair of the MCG Department of Pathology. “He was an exceptional surgical pathology fellow here starting in 2018, who chose to also pursue a pathology subspeciality that focuses on the distinctive conditions that can affect children starting with their earliest development.”

Pediatric pathologists are in short supply at even some of the nation’s largest children’s hospitals, Kolhe notes. “We are fortunate to have him here.”

The 2010 graduate of the San Martin De Porres School of Medicine in his native Peru first worked as a primary care physician in a rural area of the Peruvian rainforest, serving as the only physician for more than 1,000 residents and treating a wide variety of infectious diseases. His postgraduate training includes a residency in anatomic and clinical pathology at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center at San Antonio and a surgical pathology fellowship at MCG. He returned to Texas to the Texas Children’s Hospital of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston for a pediatric pathology fellowship, followed by a cytopathology fellowship at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.

His research interests include fine-tuning the test selection process to optimize pathology findings and the pathology of mesenchymal tissue, or soft tissue, tumors.

You can reach Velasquez-Zarate at [email protected].