Yale Bulletin and Calendar

May 5, 2000

Volume 28, Number 31

In thanks,Yale physician receives Yankees baseball

Yale physician Dr. M. Bruce Shields was presented with a baseball autographed by the New York Yankees on April 26 in gratitude for saving the eye of a nephew of Yankee pitcher Ramiro Mendoza.

In April 1999, the nephew, Juan Antonio Cedeno, was struck in the left eye with a large nut while playing with his cousins near his home in Ciudad Vacamonte, Panama. Within a few days, the nine-year-old lost sight in the injured eye.

A local doctor told the boy's family that he would never regain his vision and probably would need to have the eye removed. Distraught, the mother, Nikelda, called her brother, Mendoza, a native of Los Santos, Panama. He in turn contacted Bill O'Neill, past president of the Connecticut Lions Eye Research Foundation. Mendoza had lived with O'Neill while playing with the Yankees farm team, the Norwich Navigators, in Norwich, Connecticut. O'Neill called Shields, professor and chair of the School of Medicine's Department of Ophthalmology, who agreed to see the boy. On the same day he was flown to New Haven by his family.

Shields found that the retina of Cedeno's left eye was not injured, but he had a blood clot in the eye. Shields knew the clot would clear spontaneously and that vision in the eye would return gradually.

He told the boy's family that Cedeno likely would develop glaucoma as a result of the injury, which he did, and Shields monitored the boy carefully for several days in the glaucoma section of the Yale Eye Center. Mendoza was frequently on hand to comfort his sister and nephew.

Ultimately, Shields said the prognosis was very good and sent the boy home with medication for glaucoma and a referral to a specialist in his country. Shields has since examined the boy on more than one occasion and says he is progressing well.

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Talk marks opening of center for children exposed to violence

Scholar decries abuse of women to create pornography

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Event examines life, work of controversial Yiddish writer

Student drama centers on play once charged with being obscene

Exhibit to explore how artists depicted Africa in 20th century

Satellite images aid study of environmental threats in Africa

Celebration of Russian literature on view at Beinecke

Architecture project benefits 'fragile' city neighborhood

Yale student groups honored for service to community

Yale Physicians Building to be city's newest art exhibit space

Graduate student scientists sharing their research at two-day symposium

Agrarian Studies marks 10th year with conference

In thanks,Yale physician receives Yankees baseball

English Department alumni will consider 'Prospects for the New Century'

Memorial service to celebrate life of John Blassingame

Divinity School Search Committee Correction

Campus Notes

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