Putting on a brave face

[unixronin]

Or more to the point, bravely putting on a face.  The BBC reports surgeons at the Cleveland Clinic are seeking volunteers for a whole-face transplant.  The procedure is estimated to have only a 50% chance of success, and even if successful, the recipients will have to take anti-rejection drugs for the rest of their lives.

Britain's Royal College of Surgeons has urged doctors not to carry out face transplants, since future physical and psychological effects are unknown.

James Partridge, chief executive of the charity Changing Faces who was severely burned in a fire when he was 18, said more research is needed before any operations can go ahead.

"Psychologically, I think face transplants are very different to having somebody's kidney or liver," he told the BBC.

"To take somebody's face is to take part of their identify and to lose part of yours."

He added: "I would certainly want a lot more research into what the impact of that would be."

The technique is likely to be offered only to patients with severe disfigurement.  Surgeons say transplant recipients would have a distinct identity, and would not look like the donor; but would they come to accept that new identity as their own?

Comments

[rbos.livejournal.com]

On the surface it seems a pretty silly argument; why should a mere switch of skin from one head to another change a person's identity? How would you take part of their identity? Most facial features have little to do with the quality of the skin, they're more to do with bone structure, musculature, and so on. I honestly think this is a non-issue. There's no magic "essence of you" imbued in your face that will somehow contaminate the "essence of someone else".

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure they're talking about just transplanting skin. I read it as they're talking about transplanting the underlying tissues as well. You look at their examples -- the "end face" is very distinctly not the same face as the "starting face". Heck, they're only talking about offering this for severely disfigured people in the first place. If there wasn't a major change, there'd be no point.

I'm sure it must be pretty disturbing to get out of bed and go look in the mirror, still groggy, and have your subconscious say "That's NOT MY FACE." I think there's a valid concern of how long it takes for you to learn that this IS your face.

I'm pretty sure it's an improvement nonetheless, provided it succeeds, but I don't think the "new face effect" can be brushed off as irrelevant.

The other concern, of course, is what do they do to the poor bastards on whom it FAILS?

[rbos.livejournal.com]

as to the identity problem, I can't imagine it taking *too* long; unless you stare in a mirror a lot. I don't, and I get that feeling of "that's MY face?" a lot *anyway*, so for me I don't think it would make too much difference.

but yeah, spot on with the underlying musculature, that's a good part of it too.

for those it fails.. yeah. >_< You don't want to think about that.

[richspk.livejournal.com]

This sounds a lot like Darkman (http://imdb.com/title/tt0099365/) to me.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I've never actually seen Darkman. Maybe I should sometime.