Dr. James Ian Geller snapped a photo of a glass of beer, the beach and a Cincinnati Bengals-Kansas City Chiefs football game on TV the evening he arrived at La Jolla Shores Hotel in La Jolla, Calif., in February 2022, and posted it on Facebook.

“This is the way to watch the game,” he wrote, alongside the photo, which caught Bibianne Uychinco Fell’s attention instantly.

Starting the next day, Dr. Geller, 55, a pediatric oncologist specializing in liver and kidney tumors, would host a three-day national pediatric tumor conference at the hotel.

A year earlier, he led a pediatric liver team that saved Ms. Fell’s younger daughter’s life at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital in Ohio, where he was a clinician and researcher, and until recently conducted research remotely.

Her daughter, at age 4, was diagnosed with a high-risk liver cancer, and has been cancer-free for four years. Ms. Fell, 45, who goes by Bibi, also has two teenage daughters; all are from previous marriages.

“He’s in my city, what are the chances?” Ms. Fell, who lives in San Diego County, recalled thinking and invited him out for a glass of wine via text.