Cleveland Doc Wants to Try Face Transplant

Yahoo News/AP ^ | 9/17/2005 | Marilynn Marchione

[Mike Bates]

In the next few weeks, five men and seven women will secretly visit the Cleveland Clinic to interview for the chance to have a radical operation that's never been tried anywhere in the world.

They will smile, raise their eyebrows, close their eyes, open their mouths. Dr. Maria Siemionow will study their cheekbones, lips and noses. She will ask what they hope to gain and what they most fear.

Then she will ask, "Are you afraid that you will look like another person?"

Because whoever she chooses will endure the ultimate identity crisis.

Siemionow wants to attempt a face transplant.

This is no extreme TV makeover. It is a medical frontier being explored by a doctor who wants the public to understand what she is trying to do.

It is this: to give people horribly disfigured by burns, accidents or other tragedies a chance at a new life. Today's best treatments still leave many of them with freakish, scar-tissue masks that don't look or move like natural skin.

These people already have lost the sense of identity that is linked to the face; the transplant is merely "taking a skin envelope" and slipping their identity inside, Siemionow contends.

Her supporters note her experience, careful planning, the team of experts assembled to help her, and the practice she has done on animals and dozens of cadavers to perfect the technique.

[Mike Bates]

Could this mean hope for Michael Moore?

Michael M. Bates: My Side of the Swamp

[decimon]

Tell me about the lambs, Clarice.

[Caipirabob]

This would truly be a miracle if it works. There are many people horribly scared by fire and other horrid accidents that have lost their entire face. If just to give them hope to live normally...

[CzarNicky]

I wonder if this technology can be used to reverse unwanted circumcisions?

[Larry Lucido]

five men and seven women will secretly visit the Cleveland Clinic

Okay, we'll keep it a secret, then.

[glock rocks]

Has Governor Blanco been seen in Cleveland lately?

[TankerKC]

Does anyone remember the old SNL skit where they talked about kids born without a face. The end showed Garrett Morris with a transplanted white girl's face. Funny.

[apackof2]

LOL!, me too

[Maeve]

I wonder if this technology can be used to reverse unwanted circumcisions?

Sheesh. If they're not thinking with it, they're thinking about it.

[manwiththehands]

Having had a number of skin cancer surgeries/reconstructs myself I feel a tremendous amount of compassion and understanding for these people. Although my cancers were relatively minor and my face still looks OK (no complications and an outstanding surgeon) I know what it feels like wondering and worrying how your face will look after another surgery. Your face really is a huge part of your identity. I guess if I had to choose between disfigurement and looking like someone else ... I would want to look like anyone who looked "normal". Everyone wants to look "normal".

[Mike Bates]

Cleveland?

[Chi-townChief]

Remember "I Was a Teenaged Frankenstein"? I saw it on "Ghoulardi" when I lived in Cleveland many years ago. Pretty creepy.

[spinestein]

The Democratic Party is counting on this procedure to help restore them to power.

[CzarNicky]

reply garbled, please resend.

[ncountylee]

Yeah...Cleveland is always trying to save face.

[SweetCaroline]

Yep!

[Maeve]

LOL!

[Mike Bates]

Remember "I Was a Teenaged Frankenstein"?

One of Whit Bissell's finer efforts.

[mirkwood]

[aspiring.hillbilly]

Yeah there is hope even for michael moore. He gets a pig snout, beady eyes, and floppy sow ears that are more in keeping with the rest of his bloated piggy body.