Here is something that sounds like it is right out of a sci-fi movie-a  woman looks at herself in the mirror, but the reflection is not one she recognises because it’s not here old familiar face looking back at her, but someone else’s! But this is not a movie and the woman who is looking at herself in the mirror is for real – she is Isabelle Dinoire from France and she is the first person in the world to have a face transplant.

Ms. Dinoire, 38, suffered severe facial disfigurement, in May 2005, after part of her nose, mouth and chin were bitten off by her pet dog as she lay unconscious after taking some sleeping pills. Dr. Jean Michel Dubernard, who led the transplant team and who helped carry out the first hand transplant in Lyon seven years ago, said that the patient’s disfigurement was so severe that it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to repair the damage with classic surgery. It was decided that she was a candidate for a partial face transplant and a request for help in locating a donor was located, when the family of a brain-dead woman gave permission for the transplant. The pioneering transplant took 15 hours and was successful.

 However, questions are now being raised about the ethics of doing such a transplant given the risks, both medical and psychological. An added twist to this particular case is the report that both the donor and the recipient were involved in suicide bids. The donor, who was said to have been of a similar age and from the same area as Ms. Dinoire, had hanged herself. Ms. Dionoire herself was reported to have overdosed on sleeping pills. Emmanuel Hirsch, a Professor medical ethics and a member of the Biomedicine Agency, felt that the surgery had been done in undue haste. He also raised questions as to whether the recipient had been adequately counselled with regard to the medical and psychological implications of such a transplant since it involved the identity of a person. However, Carine Camby, the agency’s director, said that there was a certain urgency to the surgery because a delay would have made the transplant impossible due to problems of scarring. Dr. Jean-Michel Dubernard, transplant surgeon, said that Ms. Dinoire was in a “very good general state” and added that “psychologically she is doing very well.”