Pathways to Excellence URMC DEPARTMENT OF PATHOLOGY AND LABORATORY MEDICINE
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VOL 5 | ISSUE 2 | OCTOBER 2018
“This is Literally the Place that Saved My Life” By Jim Mandelaro J. ADAM FENSTER
Befikadu Mekonnen ’22 is 7,000 miles from home and hasn’t seen his family in two years. But the Ethiopia native feels at peace at the University of Rochester, where he is a biomedical engineering major. “I believe fate brought me here,” he says. “This is literally the place that saved my life.” Mekonnen was in his first year of high school in 2013 when he began experiencing constant headaches, throbbing in his right eye, and swelling in his face. “Eventually, I couldn’t breathe through my right nostril,” he says. “I couldn’t sleep.” His anxious parents took him to five hospitals in Ethiopia, but doctors couldn’t diagnose the problem. One doctor told him “‘We’ll take out your eye and do some tests’,” Mekonnen recalls. “My dad was like ‘No, you’re not going to do that.’’ Then they were referred to Rick Hodes, M.D. ’82M, an American doctor who serves as medical director of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. Hodes first visited Ethiopia as a relief worker during the 1984 famine, returned on a Fulbright
Fellowship to teach internal medicine, and in 1990 was hired by the Joint Distribution Committee as medical adviser for the country. He’s been there ever since. “Here’s this man who has saved thousands of lives in Ethiopia,” Mekonnen says, “and he looks at me and says, ‘We will find out what’s wrong with you.’’ Hodes discovered a mass behind Mekonnen’s right eye and was concerned he had a fatal disease. He sent a biopsy to the University of Rochester Medical Center, where years before he had forged an altruistic relationship with Daniel Ryan, the chair of the Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine. “I introduced myself and explained that I needed free analysis of path specimens from some of the poorest people on the planet,” Hodes says. “He agreed, and since then, I’ve sent over 100 specimens.” The work has saved lives. Medical Center pathologists diagnosed Mekonnen with an aggressive form of cancer called embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma of the orbit. He underwent chemotherapy in Ethiopia, then moved
IN THIS ISSUE From the Chair.................................................................. 2
Friends of Strong Gifts...................................................... 4
Graduate Program Update................................................ 3
Arnot Ogden Partnership.................................................. 5
Summer Students.............................................................. 4
Focus on Faculty: Dr. Nicole Pecora................................... 6