Clare Allely faces up to what it means to have a new face.
‘There’s a hesitation from my part, thinking that I would be
wearing another face that did not belong to me. But when I look
at it logically…here I am, with this hole in my head, and if I
thought I could be made whole…then I would go for it.’ Christine
Piff The face is a ‘vital component of one’s personality and
body image’. Although controversial, facial transplantation is
proposed as a significant advance in facial reconstructive
surgery. With the first face transplants (performed in France in
2005 and China in 2006) advances in surgical techniques and
immunosuppressant drugs have turned what was once the makings of
a Hollywood film into a medical reality. French surgeons
performed the first partial facial transplant, using the nose,
lips and chin from a brain-dead living donor to reconstruct the
face of a 38-year-old woman who had been mauled by a dog. As
this first patient demonstrated, facial transplantation can be
used to alleviate functional im