A New Face: A Bold Surgeon, an Untried Surgery (face transplant)

New York Times ^ | 7/26/2005 | MICHAEL MASON

[Born Conservative]

In an emergency room at a Finnish hospital, a man sprawled unconscious on an operating table as surgeons labored to reattach the hand he had lost hours earlier while chopping wood.

Medical miracles take many forms, but few are as vivid and immediate as this: As the tiny blood vessels were sutured back together, the patient's hand flushed from porcelain to pink. The delicate tendons of the palm revived, and the skin's granite glaze began to soften.

The man's fortunes had taken a remarkable turn. So, too, had those of Dr. Maria Siemionow, a surgical resident assisting in the operation.

"That you could restore to people a part of themselves that had been lost, and actually see it become vital again, was miraculous to me," said Dr. Siemionow, a native of Poland who trained in Finland and the United States. "I have never forgotten that day."

Thirty years later, microsurgery is a commonplace marvel, and as director of plastic surgery research at the Cleveland Clinic, Dr. Siemionow, 55, is a leading practitioner.

But the career that began in a Helsinki hospital has brought her, and her profession, to an extraordinary moment. A team led by Dr. Siemionow is planning to undertake what may be the most shocking medical procedure to occur in decades: a face transplant.

After years of heated scientific debate over ethics and technical feasibility, the Cleveland Clinic last fall became the first institution to approve this novel surgery. Already Dr. Siemionow's group is searching for its first patient.

An amateur photographer - portraits of faces, mostly - with a talkative, almost merry demeanor, Dr. Siemionow is not the sort one expects to find center stage in a medical danse macabre. But this is no ordinary procedure, and she is no ordinary scientist.

[Born Conservative]

Not your typical Transplant Ping List type of article...

[bannie]

For victims of disfiguring accidents this could be a gift from Heaven. It will take a great deal of emotional work; but so would being horribly disfigured.

[Born Conservative]

Ping

[Michael Goldsberry]

Interesting article. What's your login ID at the Slimes?

[al baby]

[conservativewasp]

Very true, a huge and important advance. Unfortunately in 20 years the likes of Bin Laden, and underworld figures will be able to take advantage of this kind of surgery.

[Born Conservative]

Try:

chadwit
1insipid

[Viking2002]

I wuz just thinkin'.........you could transplant my ass and her face, and nobody would notice the change........even my own wife.

Spooky thought, ain't it?

[Blood of Tyrants]

Get the bugmenot plugin and don't worry about it.

[bannie]

I hadn't thought of that. (I can't believe that I didn't!)

[Michael Goldsberry]

The procedure has been a theoretical possibility at least since 1999, when surgeons at the University of Louisville performed the nation's first hand transplant. That operation has been duplicated some two dozen times now, and the experience has given surgeons like Dr. Siemionow the courage - hubris, critics say - to think the unthinkable.

[arasina]

ROFL! You're so darned subtle sometimes.

[GladesGuru]

Move along, there is nothing new here.

Politicians have been putting on "new faces" since time immemorial. Remember the "New Democrat" face of Bill Clinton?

[Michael Goldsberry]

Thanks for the access to the article.


I'm going to have to think on this one.

[WideGlide]

A personality transplant would be more in order for this doorknob.

[isom35]

it was first done in 1997:
http://upx.primenova.com/1/mpp_main/FaceOff.jpg

[Antonello]

That movie was better than I expected it to be. Solid performances by both Travolta and Cage; but personally I think the girl who played Travolta's daughter upstaged them both.

[Chode]

dude... post a warning before doing that or something!!! damn 8^)

[sweetliberty]

Not to mention the chronically vain. Don't like your face? Buy a new one. Hey, maybe there's hope for Michael Jackson yet.