Meet Dr. Virgina Gonzalez, M.D.

Dr. Virginia Gonzales, M.D., has delivered state-of-the-art heart care to Northeast Louisiana since 1999. Dr. Gonzalez, a fellow with the Society of Cardiovascular Angiography and Intervention, earned a bachelor’s degree from Liceo Agustin Cadazzi in Maracay, Venezuela, before continuing to the University of Carabobo School of Medicine, where she earned a medical degree.

Dr. Gonzalez later was accepted to John Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, where she obtained a master’s degree. She then completed her internship and training in internal medicine at Shadyside Hospital in Pittsburg, followed by advance training by way of the University of Pittsburg Fellowship in Hypertension. She continued her advance training through the University of Pittsburg Fellowship in Cardiology at the Pittsburg Heart Institute.

In 1995, she entered private practice in Lake Charles, Louisiana, with Cardiovascular Institute of the South and Lake Charles Memorial Hospital where she was instrumental in restructuring the hospital’s cardiac program.

In 1999, Dr. Gonzalez began to search for an area in Louisiana that was underserved in interventional cardiology and discovered that Northeast Louisiana fir that criteria. Dr. Gonzales responded to this need by reopening the St. Francis Medical Center Interventional Program on a fulltime basis. In 2001, Glenwood Medical Center saw the need to provide an additional interventional program. Dr. Gonzales responded to this call by opening the Glenwood Medical Center Interventional Program, so that both sides of the Ouachita River could be served for acute angioplasty in a timely manner. She also participated in the development of Northeast Louisiana’s first accredited chest pain center at Glenwood Hospital.

Dr. Gonzalez specializes in interventional cardiology, nuclear cardiology, echocardiology, general cardiology, and is certified to conduct computed tomography angiography.

• Interventional cardiology involves intervening to open blocked or clogged arteries to improve blood flow to and from the heart. It is an important treatment for patients with disease of the heart, blocked vessels, and coronary artery disease. Interventional cardiology helps relieve symptoms and allows patients to become more active.
• Nuclear Cardiology uses noninvasive techniques to assess myocardial blood flow, evaluate the pumping function of the heart, and visualize the size and location of a heart attack.
• Echocardiography is the use of ultrasound to examine the heart. An echocardiogram provides single dimensional images that allow for accurate measurements of the heart chambers. It also, offers two dimensional images capable of displaying a cross-sectional “slice” of a beating heart, including the chambers, valves, and the major blood vessels that exit from the left and right ventricles.

Dr. Gonzales has worked to make Northeast Louisiana aware of the seriousness of heart disease. Her commitment to the area is to provide optimum healthcare services and to educate patients in the number one killer in America.