Dr. Francis James Gatdula

Dr. Gatdula has been a licensed physician in the Philippines since 2014. He obtained his medical degree from the University of Santo Tomas (UST) - Manila as a full scholar. He finished two years of surgical residency in St. Luke's Medical Center which includes exposure to Pediatric Neurosurgery at the Philippine Children’s Medical Center. After this, he was accepted to continue his training in Neurological Surgery at the University of the East Neurosurgery System with the Southern Philippines Medical Center (SPMC), the largest government healthcare facility in the Philippines run by the Department of Health, as the main participating clinical site. Before finishing training in December of 2022, he served as concurrent chief resident for both the University of the East Ramon Magsaysay Memorial Medical Center and SPMC. He also did clinical rotations in Functional and stereotactic neurosurgery at the Philippine Gamma Knife Center & and the Philippine Movement Disorder Surgery Center, Neuropathology, and Cerebrovascular and Endovascular Intervention. After finishing Neurosurgery residency, he immediately served as the Training Program Coordinator of SPMC Division of Neurosurgery - Advanced Comprehensive Brain & Spine Care Center working directly under the Program’s Training Officer and Adviser. Currently, he is an Assistant Professor of Neuroanatomy and Neurology at Davao Medical School Foundation and Asst. Professor of Neurosurgery and Neuroanatomy at Jose Maria College of Medicine in Davao City. Dr. Gatdula has been in the neurosurgical field since 2016. He authored a number of scientific articles published in international medical peer-reviewed journals including Oxford Neuro-oncology, The British Medical Journal, and the Brain and Spine Journal by the European Association of Neurosurgical Specialties (EANS). He also wrote medical articles published in Health and Lifestyle Philippines. He served as an editor of the UST Varsitarian. Dr. Gatdula also presented scientific papers as a speaker at international conferences, some with scholarship grants, including the EANS Academy in Barcelona, Congress of Neurological Surgeons in Houston Texas, and Washington DC, British Neuro-oncology Society in Winchester, and the World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies. During residency, Dr. Gatdula was exposed and able to adequately manage and perform operations and procedures with capabilities for general neurosurgery (brain and spinal cord tumors, complex brain and spine trauma, neurosurgical infections, stroke and vascular diseases, and pediatric hydrocephalus and congenital brain and spine anomalies) further enhanced by patient volume and case variability. Dr. Gatdula also has interests in cerebrovascular and endovascular neurosurgery.