Ahmed Arfa, MBChB

Dr. Gonzalez-Gomez is a pathologist at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital. He joined the hospital staff in 2009.His research interests include pediatric neuropathology and in particular neuro-oncogenesis, the search for the etiology or processes that lead to the development of brain tumors, including cellular morphologic features, patterns of growth, immunophenotype, metabolism, proliferation, apoptosis/necrosis, vascularization and response to therapy.Dr. Gonzalez-Gomez earned his medical degree at the University of Guadalajara in Mexico. He completed a multidisciplinary internship at Hospital General de Tlaxcala, Ministry of Health and National Autonomous University of Mexico. Dr. Gonzalez-Gomez trained in anatomic pathology at Instituto Nacional de la Nutricion in Mexico City, Mexico. He completed a residency elective rotation, pediatric pathology fellowship and neuropathology fellowship at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, University of Southern California.Dr. Gonzalez-Gomez is fluent in Spanish.

Dr. Cheek specializes in pathology at Johns Hopkins All Children’s. He joined the hospital staff in 2025. He was previously medical director HCA Florida Gulf Coast Hospital in Panama City.  Dr. Cheek has also served as a pediatric pathologist at Sunrise Children’s Hospital in Las Vegas and as chief of pediatric pathology at Wolfson Children’s Hospital in Jacksonville, Florida. Dr. Cheek earned his medical degree from Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center School of Medicine in New Orleans. He completed an anatomic and clinical pathology residency at LSU Health Sciences Center, also serving as chief resident. Dr. Cheek then completed a fellowship in pediatric pathology at Children’s Hospital of New Orleans. He has a particular interest in pediatric neuropathology.

Dr. Monforte is the section chief of Anatomic Pathology and also supports the research mission of Johns Hopkins All Children’s by serving as director of the Tissue-Based Diagnosis and Research Core and the Johns Hopkins All Children’s Pediatric Biorepository. He earned his medical degree from the Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara School of Medicine in Mexico. He completed his anatomic pathology residency at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, Florida, and fellowships at The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and at the Children's Hospital Los Angeles. Dr. Monforte’s primary areas of expertise within pediatric and adolescent pathology include oncologic surgical pathology of solid tumors and gastrointestinal pathology, including Hirschsprung Disease. His contributions include intraoperative consultation and frozen section diagnosis and optimal methods of specimen procurement, allocation and maximization of tissue derived resources for precision medicine grade diagnostic, esoteric testing, research and archival applications. He is a CAP certification inspector for anatomic pathology and biorepository credentialing. Dr. Monforte is active in several professional societies, and has published clinical research in peer-reviewed journals. He is also active in didactic conferences and presentations at national and international meetings, intramural teaching conferences at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital and the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and University of South Florida Pathology residency program.