Ethical Issues Posed by Face Transplants
Howe, E.G.
Journal of Clinical Ethics 30(4): 303-313
2019
ISSN/ISBN: 1046-7890 PMID: 31851621 Document Number: 699117
A face transplant is as challenging a surgical procedure as any patient can undergo. In this introduction I present the medical aspects of this surgery, the profound ethical issues it raises, and optimal interventions that clinicians can pursue to help these patients and their loved ones. I then discuss how to help other kinds of patients and loved ones who confront similar stresses. I end by presenting a goal that author Sharrona Pearl puts forth after she studied many face transplant patients. The efforts she urges should maximize our capacity to see face transplant patients-and anyone-as they are, as opposed to how they look.