Etienne Coon-Come Masiringi, a third-year social work student at Carleton, is returning to school after recovering from a severe brain injury that happened in November 2016.
Doctors removed a portion of Coon-Come Masiringi’s brain to relieve the swelling and help his brain begin to heal. After spending a month and a half at the Ottawa Hospital, he was moved to the hospital’s rehabilitation centre.
“They (the centre workers) teach you how to live on your own and take care of yourself,” he said.
Shortly after the injury, doctors performed brain surgery on Coon-Come Masiringi, and inserted a piece of a 3D-printed skull into his head to replace the portion that had been removed.
“They could have used the piece of skull that they took out, but there’s a higher chance of infection,” he said, “It’s a little bit safer to use a 3D printer and make a skull piece.”
The Charlatan reached out to Dr. Adnan Sheikh, the medical director of the 3D printing program at the Ottawa Hospital, multiple times for comment but Sheikh did not respond in in time for publication.
In an interview with CTV Ottawa, Sheikh said 3D printing particularly helped visualize the surgery in Coon-Come Masiringi’s case.
“A patient won’t understand a CT scan or MRI images,” he said, “but having this hand-held 3D model can explain to patients exactly what’s going to happen, how the surgery’s going to be done and allow them to consent to the surgery much easier.”
Coon-Come Masiringi is currently seeing an advisor at the Paul Menton Centre to help him transition back to Carleton. He added that he is very excited to start his classes again.
“I’ve been out of the game for close to two years and my motivation is just I need to get back into it,” he said. “I need to get productive again because when I was recovering, I wasn’t doing much and the days go by really slowly and I just want to be productive again.”
Coon-Come Masiringi starts his third year at Carleton this week.
This article was updated on June 24, 2021 to respect Etienne Coon-Come Masiringi’s right to privacy in relation to medical information. The Charlatan regrets any harm caused by the earlier version of this article.
Photo by Karen-Luz Sison
