From the time the first masks were ever developed, humankind has always had a fascination with taking another individual’s identity. Hollywood has made movies on the topic: Face Off was a film about two men- one good and one bad- trading faces through cosmetic surgery and assuming one another’s identity. According to cosmetic surgeons the expertise and technology required to perform facial transplant surgery already exists. Doctors have been extremely reticent to perform this type of plastic surgery, fearing the psychological consequences of this intrepid medical move.
The move towards facial transplant surgery approaches on the heels of other similar procedures. In the 1990s, Indian doctors replanted the skin of a nine-year-old girl who lost her scalp and face to a threshing machine. Extensive skin grafts, which can be considered mini facial transplants, have already been performed in the United States. Physicians in Ohio are about to start screening 12 severely disfigured patients for the first face transplant. Doctors in Kentucky, wishing to do the same, are awaiting approval from an ethics committee.
The medical community is divided over the controversial issue of face transplants. Some doctors believe that this cosmetic procedure will provide reconstructive surgical options to patients who have been severely disfigured in accidents. Many doctors express deep concern about the emotional ramifications of face transplant surgery. Doctors already understand that patients receiving a transplant, like a kidney or liver, face a myriad of emotional traumas. These psychological disturbances can include fears about whether or not the new organ will work and the effects if it does not, worries about the body’s rejection of the new organ, and much more. Many leading surgeons are convinced that these worries will be greatly magnified in a facial transplant patient.
Many doctors cite the example of Clint Hallam, the world’s first hand transplant recipient. He asked for the new hand to be removed, unable to cope with the consequences of his surgery. It took Denis Chatelier, the world’s first double hand transplant recipient, more than four years to accept his transplants as his own hands.
These experiences highlight the necessity of careful patient selection with transplant and all plastic surgery procedures. Still, doctors are convinced that facial transplant surgery has much greater implications than any other cosmetic procedure. Experts worry that a patient would not be able to cope with potential complications of this surgery, not to mention adapting to having a new face, and thus, a new identity. Society’s invasive reaction to the world’s first face transplant recipient would also be unbearable.
Dr. James Partridge, who runs Changing Faces, a charity which helps facially disfigured individuals, believes that at least another ten years of research is necessary before the emotional issues related to facial transplants could be adequately addressed. He also is scornful of the “face race” to be the first to perform facial transplant surgery that seems to be occurring in the international plastic surgery community.