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Kyndell Harkness, Star Tribune

Doctors and nurses worked together as they rebuilt Merdya Abdisa face after removing a fluid-filled cyst at St. Josephs Hospital in St Paul. Abdisa, from northern Ethiopia, had a facial cyst that grew out and replaced bone on the right side of her face.

Chance meeting leads to face-saving surgery

By JOSEPHINE MARCOTTY, Star Tribune

Last update: June 16, 2008

Dr. Rick Hodes was used to hearing "no" when he opened his laptop to show brain surgeons pictures of the young Ethiopian woman. An extraordinary case, they would always agree, but there was nothing they could do.

Although he lives and works in Ethiopia, last October Hodes was in town for a fundraiser and stopped at a St. Louis Park synagogue to pray. He started chatting with Dr. Eric Nussbaum, who was there studying with the rabbi.

"Let me show you some of my cases," Hodes said, as he always does when he meets someone who might be able to help the young Muslim woman with the carefully arranged headscarf pictured on his laptop screen. Those around them who weren't doctors recoiled at the photo. But Nussbaum was fascinated.

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Surgeons at St. Joseph's Hospital in St. Paul rebuilt the face and skull of an Ethiopian woman that had an intrusive and disfiguring tumor growing inside her skull. 3D animations created from CT scans show the patient's condition before the operation, details of the procedure and results of the surgery.