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?