Kristian Aquilina FRCS (SN), MD

Mr. Kristian Aquilina graduated from the University of Malta in 1995 and completed his neurosurgical training in 2009. He completed a one-year clinical fellowship in pediatric neurosurgery, and particularly neuro-oncology, at St Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital and Le Bonheur Children’s Medical Center in Memphis, Tennessee, where he trained under the mentorship of Professors Frederick Boop and Robert (Alex) Sanford. He was appointed lead neurosurgeon for neuro-oncology at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) in 2012.

Mr. Aquilina completed an MD in original research on hydrocephalus in premature babies at the University of Bristol in 2012. He also spent time at the Center for Cerebral Palsy in St Louis, Missouri, where he learned the single-level technique for Selective Dorsal Rhizotomy. He subsequently introduced this procedure to the UK while a consultant in Bristol in 2011. He has an interest in neurosurgical education and leads the fellowship program in neurosurgery at GOSH. He is an examiner on the intercollegiate fellowship examination in neurosurgery, FRCS (Neuro. Surg), in the UK.

Mr. Aquilina is committed to optimizing results in surgery for brain tumors in children. The balance between obtaining a complete resection of the tumor and minimizing neurological deficit is often difficult. He uses intra-operative neuro-monitoring for several tumor procedures and is the neurosurgical lead for the intra-operative MRI project at GOSH.