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A Mask of Flesh: Face Transplants a Reality
By newsguy | December 15, 2007
A new era of plastic surgery begins: the world’s first face transplant has been officially declared successful.
Granted, Isabelle Dinoire (who received the partial face transplant after having her nose, cheeks, and mouth mauled by her dog) had a good reason to play guinea pig. Doctors in France performed the operation 18 months ago and now report to the New England Journal of Medicine that she’s healing very well. She has overcome episodes of rejection and in recent photos looks remarkably recovered, with scars visible only when not covered by make-up.
It’s been a long road for Dinoire, whose recovery process included psychological counseling and facial exercises, but her face is functioning and with cosmetics looks close to normal. For people whose faces are marred by accidents, burns, and other trauma, this news will indeed be welcomed.
Photograph by Joshua Dickens. Some rights reserved.
I don’t yet foresee a time when doctors replace facial features as they do sculpting in elective plastic surgery; for one thing the technique is far from perfected, and the scars alone would deter even Michael Jackson. For another, the transplant requires a willing—deceased—donor. But once we humans accomplish something, we tend to want to do it in bigger, better, and different ways. Consider all the drugs that were developed for one purpose and changed to another—e.g. Lamictal, and anti-convulsant used to treat seizures, is now a more popular drug for treatment of bipolar disorder than its original intent.
We’re a vain society. Could it be that when technology advances, we will find ourselves in the position of choosing whether or not this sort of procedure should be afforded to the Michael Jacksons of this world? Only time will tell. But I’m just cynical enough to wonder.
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