In Cleveland this week, doctors performed the first US face transplant on a woman “with facial damage so severe that she could not eat on her own or breathe without a hole in her windpipe,” according to The New York Times.
“Our patient was called names and was humiliated,” Dr. Siemionow said. “Children ran away.”
Critics argue that the operation was unethical and too dangerous. If I were the patient, I would much rather take this risk so that I could re-join the world without stares and humiliation. In fact, if I had the disfigurements that the patient had, I wouldn’t have the courage to walk out of the house.
I’m confident that this face transplant will be a success and will pave the way for more operations that will allow disfigured patients to lead a more normal life.
2026 Note: As I was adding this post to my new website, and doing an image search, I found out that Connie Culp, the recipient of this face transplant, passed away in 2020 of an infection unrelated to her face transplant. She lived for almost a dozen years after her surgery.
Why did Connie Culp need a face transplant? Apparently, this was the case of a 2004 attempted murder-suicide after a domestic dispute. Thomas Culp also survived and spent only seven years in prison. He was released in 2011, nine years before Connie died. The fact that she died at age 57, due to an infection she couldn’t fight because of years on immunosuppressants points to Thomas Culp as being the cause of her death.