About the Author
Dr. Leonardo Garcia-Mendez
Dr. Leonardo Garcia-Mendez was born in Venezuela. He graduated from the University of Zulia Medical School in Maracaibo, Venezuela in 1968. After doing an internship at the University Hospital in Maracaibo, he went to New York City, where he did his pediatric internship and residency, followed by his Pediatric Neurology Fellowship under the supervision of Dr. Sidney Carter at the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center (Babies Hospital and the Neurological Institute of New York). Then he completed a fellowship in Electroencephalography in the same institution. Afterward, he returned to Maracaibo, Venezuela in 1976, where he began his private practice and was in charge of teaching Pediatric Neurology at the University of Zulia.
He stayed in Venezuela until 1989, when he went to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia as a consultant in Pediatric Neurology at the King Fahad National Guard Hospital for the next two years. From Riyadh, he accepted a position as Associate Professor of Pediatric Neurology at the University of Missouri-Columbia, USA (1991), where he stayed for the next three years, before returning to Saudi Arabia for a year (1995) to gain further experience in neurometabolic disorders. Then he moved to South Texas in McAllen in 1996 to the present. At this time, Dr. Garcia-Mendez is involved in the private practice of his specialty and is a lecturer in his fields of interest. He has published several books in Spanish and English oriented to parents, teachers and paramedical personnel on seizures, headaches and learning and behavioral problems in children. He is deeply committed to community education.
His last project has been the development of an educational and diagnostic software program as teaching tool for physicians and medical students. His program “NeurometPlus®” has been in development since 1995. This program takes most of his spare time because of his commitment to update and expand it.
Dr. Garcia is Board Certified in Pediatrics (1975), Board Certified in Electroencephalography (ABQEEG) 1976, Board Certified in Neurology with Special Competency in Child Neurology (1980) and Board Certified in Sleep Medicine (ABPN subspecialty 2007). He is a former Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Neurology at Escuela de Medicina Universidad del Zulia (Venezuela), University of Missouri-Columbia School of Medicine (Columbia, Missouri, USA), and The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (San Antonio, Texas, USA). He is currently a Clinical Associate Professor at UTRGV Neurology Residence Program in McAllen, TX.