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Plans advancing for world's first face transplant

CLEVELAND, Ohio (AP) -- In the next few weeks, five men and seven women will secretly visit the Cleveland Clinic to interview for the chance to have a radical operation that's never been tried anywhere before.

They will smile, raise their eyebrows, close their eyes, open their mouths. Dr. Maria Siemionow will study their cheekbones, lips and noses. She will ask what they hope to gain and what they most fear.

Then she will ask, "Are you afraid that you will look like another person?"

Because whomever she chooses will endure the ultimate identity crisis.

Siemionow wants to attempt a face transplant.

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I want this one: happy, happy, happy! I wonder if it would turn me into an optimist...

Seriously now, it's a little disturbing. The article does a good job at showing arguments both for and against this type of surgery, but I'll have to reread it a couple of times to see where I stand.
 

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Posted by Tante Shvester (Member # 8202) on :
 
For people who have had a disfiguring trauma or disease, and are living without a proper face, this operation could tremendously improve their quality of life. But just for cosmetic reasons? Going about all the time with a corpse's face? That just seems wrong.
 

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Posted by ElJay (Member # 6358) on :
 
Wow.
 

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Posted by Enigmatic (Member # 7785) on :
 
That is one of the squickiest articles I've read in a long time. The bit about rejection of the transplanted face and the 28-hour surgery for the boy attacked by a dog made me just about lose it.

I hope the procedure works, and I hope it can help people who've suffered disfigurement. But at the same time: Ick. Eww. *shudder*

--Enigmatic
 

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Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
 
Maybe I could sell my face on the black market. I'm not really using it, and I could use the money.
 

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Posted by Tante Shvester (Member # 8202) on :
 
Then you'd have to lurk in the shadows and wear a mask, a la "Phantom of the Opera".
 

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Posted by kojabu (Member # 8042) on :
 
And sing and be piney for a girl named Christine too.
 

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Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
 
I am in favor of this, as long as they try to keep the patient as informed as possible. It is their choice, and as this type of technique progresses it would make all sorts of things possible that weren't before, and possibly create new thechniqies to help people who lives have been damaged my fires, accidents, or even dieseases like flesh eating bateria.


Still is pretty weird though.
 

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Posted by Nell Gwyn (Member # 8291) on :
 
Weirdness. Did anyone else ever read the Sweet Valley High books*, where once the twins had some psycho girl wanting to give herself their face through surgery, and then kill the twins? That's the first thing that article made me think of.

* To clarify: My reading of these books is in the past tense. I have not touched one in over five years.
 

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Posted by Valentine014 (Member # 5981) on :
 
Actually this thread reminded me of a book I just finished, Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palanuik. A model gets shot in face and is disfigured.
 

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