Posted on 05/16/2016 10:07:48 AM PDT by Maceman
BOSTON, MA - In a 15-hour procedure spanning two days and performed by a more than 50-member team, surgeons at Boston's Massachusetts General Hospital have completed the first penis transplant in the U.S.
Thomas Manning, a 64-year-old bank courier for Halifax, lost his penis to cancer in 2012 and was the recipient of the transplant. The organ came from a deceased donor.
In a press conference Monday, MGH surgeons described the intense isolation and loss that comes with losing the penis, as a result of injury or illness.
"Ultimately, it's a loss of self-identity," said Dr. Dicken Ko, the team leader and director of MGH's regional urology program. "These devastating losses are endured by themselves alone, and often in silence."
Manning, who surgeons described as a "courageous patient," was one such person. Manning "coped very well with his diagnosis," but "felt the loss" after a partial penectomy, the result of a diagnosis of rare and potentially fatal penile cancer, said his physician, Dr. Adam Feldman. He volunteered for the transplant, Feldman said.
"He wants to be whole again, he wants to be... not in the shadows," said Curtis Cetrulo, who led Manning's surgical team. "That really echoes what a lot of patients with these injuries feel like. It's difficult to talk about."
Surgeons said Manning is doing well Monday, roughly one week since the surgery was completed. They remain "cautiously optimistic."
The surgery means there is potential for other special tissue transplants, such as ears or fingers, Ko said. It also has potential implications for transgender surgeries, although that is outside their initial scope, surgeons said.
(Excerpt) Read more at patch.com ...
**It also has potential implications for transgender surgeries**
Which is no doubt the real motivation in trying this.
I wonder if he got Hillary’s.
It is nice that you are so enlightened and above it all.
Some of us are a bit more shallow and if we had to have a breast removed would like to have the reconstruction done.
Same if our nose had to be removed, we would vote for reconstruction rather then breathing through a gaping hole in the middle of our face.
Hi Buddy!
No, I’m not vain like some apparently.
Isn't it ironic.
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