Why We Approve of the Face Transplant
By PSAuthority on Dec 18, 2008 in Cosmetic Plastic Surgery
The first U.S. face transplant, performed by Dr. Maria Siemionow, took 22 hours and has replaced 80% of a patent’s face.
Some proclaim it’s too dangerous. After all, the patient’s body might resist the new tissue and then she wouldn’t have a face at all.
Others shout it’s unethical.
The price paid for such procedures may be too high for cosmetics, they are saying.
Here is our stand.
Yes, some cosmetic procedures are vain and unnecessary, but many are not.
Improving a needy person’s life is a mission with a higher calling. It is not for vanity.
This patient at the Cleveland Clinic did not have a face before the surgery.
The face transplant procedure gave her one just as similar surgery gave the first transplant patient, Isabelle Dinoire, a new face three years ago.
For those people who have lost their faces due to disease and accident, this procedure is not cosmetic. It is far more important than simply looking good.
As for the danger, that is a risk the patient must be willing to take. Yes, it’s dangerous. Yet the rewards of success are so strong the person went ahead.
But what if it doesn’t work? What if the worst happens and the patients’ system rejects the transpant?
That would be tragic. We’re not minimizing that.
But living without a face is a living death, in my opinion. This procedure has given this patient hope for a better life.
There’s also another dimension.
There are many more people who need this surgery. Every time a doctor pioneers the technique more people can be helped.
More patients will be given back their identities, dignity and lives.
Isn’t that really what the practice of medicine is all about?
