Neurosurgeon Arnold Menezes and Maria Davis Hochstedler, now a physician assistant with UI Heart and Vascular Center, in March 2024. Menezes performed a lifesaving surgery on Davis Hockstedler when she was 8 years old, and the two formed a bond. (UIHC photo)<\/p>\n \u00a0 Buy Photo<\/p>\n \u2018One person in the world\u2019<\/p>\n Born in Mumbai, India, Menezes came from a long line of physicians and surgeons \u2014 including his father, grandfather and great-grandfather. As a medical student at Bombay University, he learned that treatments for brain tumors in children were largely unsuccessful and set out to change that \u2014 eyeing the United States as offering research opportunities.<\/p>\n But medical residencies were sparse for India-born doctors, according to a UIHC 2024 profile.<\/p>\n \u201cDiscrimination,\u201d Menezes said at the time. \u201cBack in medical school, I stood first in anatomy, first in general surgery, first in internal medicine. But it didn\u2019t matter. Many places were not interested in someone like me.\u201d<\/p>\n Menezes got his foot in the door through a community hospital in South Chicago, where he learned \u201cwhat not to do\u201d and the importance of finding an academic medical center where both he and his wife \u2014 the late Dr. Meenal Menezes<\/a> \u2014 could complete their residencies.<\/p>\n Some institutions made offers to one or the other but not both \u2014 at times criticizing their nationality.<\/p>\n \u201cThe general response I got from some of these was, \u2018We have better people than you to choose from\u2019,\u201d Menezes told the university last year of the rejection letters he shared with Matthew Howard, UIHC professor and chair of the UI Department of Neurosurgery.<\/p>\n \u201cJust terrible stuff,\u201d Howard said. \u201cLetters saying they\u2019d never take a doctor from India because they\u2019re not competent and they\u2019re not trustworthy. And worse.\u201d<\/p>\n Neurosurgeon Arnold Menezes and longtime colleague Matthew Howard, MD, professor and chair of the UI Department of Neurosurgery. (UIHC photo)<\/p>\n \u00a0 Buy Photo<\/p>\n But UIHC took a chance on them \u2014 welcoming Arnold for residency and fellowship training in general surgery, neurosurgery, and pediatric neurosurgery and Meenal for training in anesthesia and cardiac anesthesia. She served as an adjunct clinical professor at UIHC before shifting to Mercy Iowa City.<\/p>\n Menezes joined the UIHC medical faculty in 1974 \u2014 when patients with disorders involving the junction between the skull and spine had high morbidity and mortality rates. Specifically, about one-third of these patients would die within three days of having what was the standard surgery at the time \u2014 which involved accessing the problem area through the back of the patient\u2019s neck.<\/p>\n In considering alternatives, Menezes looked to a relatively rare method for treating tuberculosis that went through a patient\u2019s mouth. But he knew he would need training beyond neurosurgery \u2014 like in orthopedics, ophthalmology, otolaryngology and biomechanics \u2014 to chart a new method.<\/p>\n So he reached out to those other departments, and \u201cthey all welcomed me,\u201d Menezes told the university \u2014 recalling the mentors and colleagues who inspired him through their own innovative careers, like Ignacio Ponseti, who developed the globally-esteemed Ponseti method for clubfoot treatment; and Brian McCabe, former chair of the UI Department of Otolaryngology, who \u2014 among other things \u2014 oversaw development of multidisciplinary cleft lip-palate management and of cochlear implantation.<\/p>\n With their guidance, Menezes designed, performed and interpreted radiology procedures \u2014 which he used in making clinical correlations aimed at breaking the pattern of high mortality rates.<\/p>\n Neurosurgeon Arnold Menezes (top row, second from left) is pictured in the 1970s with faculty and residents in the UI Department of Surgery\u2019s Division of Neurosurgery. (UIHC photo)<\/p>\n \u00a0 Buy Photo<\/p>\n \u201cHe was the one person in the world who really figured out the fine details of a different set of surgical strategies to get to that area, remove the parts of the bone that were pressing on the nervous system, and then stabilize the patient after that intervention,\u201d Howard told The Gazette. \u201cSo he would essentially cure these patients.\u201d<\/p>\n Menezes around 1978 started building a patient database \u2014 at first by hand \u2014 which has since grown to encompass more than 7,000 patient cases from around the world. Through his research and documentation in the form of textbook chapters, manuscripts, workshops, and presentations, Menezes disseminated his novel \u2014 and much more successful \u2014 surgical strategies to physicians around the world.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s still very dangerous and difficult, but there now are surgeons around the world who have adopted his practice,\u201d Howard said, including at Iowa \u2014 where surgeon Brian Dlouhy trained directly under Menezes, allowing him to continue Iowa\u2019s prominence as a global center for craniovertebral abnormalities.<\/p>\n \u201cHe has taken that over,\u201d Howard said, \u201cand gets patients from all over the country.\u201d<\/p>\n Pediatric neurosurgeon Arnold Menezes (right) looks toward Nyamamyana Natutsi, not pictured, the mother of Moise Irakiza, 8, and the translation from Swahili to English during a Jan. 29, 2020, appointment at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. (Jim Slosiarek\/The Gazette)<\/p>\n \u00a0 Buy Photo<\/p>\n \u2018He was the expert\u2019<\/p>\n Beyond Chiari malformation, Menezes and his colleagues over the years addressed dozens of neuro-related diseases and abnormalities including basilar invagination and Down syndrome. In 2015, Menezes cared for a 3-year-old Congolese boy<\/a> named Moise Irakiza who was born with a hole in the front of his skull \u2014 allowing his brain to grow through it.<\/p>\n The defect created a facial deformity in the child \u2014 whose growing brain was pushing aside his eyes. Menezes and his team performed multiple surgeries to correct the malformation and reconstruct the child\u2019s face \u2014 allowing him to continue his childhood like any other.<\/p>\n \u201cIf there’s anything you can say about Dr. Menezes, he truly helped me,\u201d the child\u2019s mother Nyamamyana Natutsi told The Gazette in 2020. \u201cAnd God will pay him back.\u201d<\/p>\n
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