Post by Confessor on Nov 18, 2015 9:57:38 GMT -5
Have you guys seen this news report about a New York fireman who has received the most extensive face transplant ever...
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/nov/16/firefighter-receives-full-face-transplant-historic-surgery
This is an amazing medical breakthrough, but I'm not convinced that it's not without physical, psychological and moral problems. On the BBC news coverage last night they showed footage of this guy's family seeing him for the first time after the operation. His daughter looked proper freaked out and really distraught. She hugged him for the cameras, but her face told the real story. She obviously knew that this was her farther, but I think her eyes were telling her that it wasn't her Dad standing in front of her, which understandably caused her a fair bit of upset and trauma.
A person's face is such a fundamental part of who they are as people and our own faces are so incredibly important in terms of how other people interact with us that, to suddenly change it -- even to change it from a horribly disfigured one -- kinda makes you a different person on some level, doesn't it? I mean, it's only a surface change, of course, but human beings are flawed and mostly irrational creatures; visual stimuli have a massive effect on how we act towards our fellow humans. Also, even though this guy's new face looks better than his horrifically burnt one straight away, when he talked on the news last night, it looked like someone talking from behind a rubber face mask. It was very odd to see.
Then there's the moral dilemma's that this throws up: will the super-rich one day have face transplants from younger donors in order to make themselves look younger? Could this technology, as it becomes more refined and advanced, be used by criminals to switch identities after they have committed a crime?
Then, of course, there are the psychological issues of having someone else's face in place of your own. That's gonna really mess you up psychologically, I would think. I imagine this guy must be receiving some sort of counselling, but I wonder what the long-term ramifications of this operation will be on his mental health. I really do wish him well and, as I say, it's incredible that such things are medically possible nowadays, but I also wonder if this guy might one day come to regret having the procedure done.
EDIT: Just to be clear, I'm not against this procedure at all. I'm just pondering the pros and cons of it, and I thought I'd throw it out to the community to get some of your viewpoints.
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/nov/16/firefighter-receives-full-face-transplant-historic-surgery
This is an amazing medical breakthrough, but I'm not convinced that it's not without physical, psychological and moral problems. On the BBC news coverage last night they showed footage of this guy's family seeing him for the first time after the operation. His daughter looked proper freaked out and really distraught. She hugged him for the cameras, but her face told the real story. She obviously knew that this was her farther, but I think her eyes were telling her that it wasn't her Dad standing in front of her, which understandably caused her a fair bit of upset and trauma.
A person's face is such a fundamental part of who they are as people and our own faces are so incredibly important in terms of how other people interact with us that, to suddenly change it -- even to change it from a horribly disfigured one -- kinda makes you a different person on some level, doesn't it? I mean, it's only a surface change, of course, but human beings are flawed and mostly irrational creatures; visual stimuli have a massive effect on how we act towards our fellow humans. Also, even though this guy's new face looks better than his horrifically burnt one straight away, when he talked on the news last night, it looked like someone talking from behind a rubber face mask. It was very odd to see.
Then there's the moral dilemma's that this throws up: will the super-rich one day have face transplants from younger donors in order to make themselves look younger? Could this technology, as it becomes more refined and advanced, be used by criminals to switch identities after they have committed a crime?
Then, of course, there are the psychological issues of having someone else's face in place of your own. That's gonna really mess you up psychologically, I would think. I imagine this guy must be receiving some sort of counselling, but I wonder what the long-term ramifications of this operation will be on his mental health. I really do wish him well and, as I say, it's incredible that such things are medically possible nowadays, but I also wonder if this guy might one day come to regret having the procedure done.
EDIT: Just to be clear, I'm not against this procedure at all. I'm just pondering the pros and cons of it, and I thought I'd throw it out to the community to get some of your viewpoints.
