Coming To Terms With ‘Wearing’ Another Person’s Face
The medical and psychological complications of a face transplant
Recently I attended the World Congress on Facial Expression of Emotion at which groundbreaking research on the interplay among the brain, face, and emotions was presented by a world-renowned panel of practitioners and academics.
Although many keynotes were interesting, I was especially intrigued by two surgeons who spoke about the face transplantations and reconstructions they had performed. The first keynote speaker was Dr. Joan-Pere Barret, the specialist who performed the first-ever full-face transplant.
The second keynote speaker on facial transplantations was Dr. Edward J. Caterson, a member of the facial transplant team at Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School, Boston.
Dr. Caterson has specific expertise and interest in reconstructive plastic surgery, cleft care, craniofacial surgery, and microsurgery which he performs at Nemours Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children.
Interestingly, his youngest son was born with a cleft lip. A cleft lip or cleft palate occurs when the structures that form the upper lip or palate fail to grow together when the fetus is developing in the womb.
