You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby
Well, we doctors all would agree that smoking is bad for one’s health, but it is certainly legal. What makes this story so interesting?
Both critics and supporters of facial transplant surgery agree that cigarette smoking can significantly impair tissue healing through a variety of mechanisms.
Uh, oh - I can see where we’re going here…
“The main problems with chronic smoking during wound healing are an increased rate of infection and increased rate of flap failure,” said Victor Neel, M.D., Ph.D., director of dermatologic surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital.
No, don’t tell me this patient is willing to put her love of cigarettes ahead of her health! Surely she understands that smoking could be disastrous to her facial transplant.
“A face transplant is the ultimate high-risk procedure. Light-to-heavy smokers have something like a six- to tenfold increased risk of the skin flap dying,” Dr. Neel said.
“Six- to tenfold risk? Oh, is that all? Why, that’s nothing, Doc - I won’t even break a sweat until you tell me there’s a 75% chance my new face will fall off! In fact the gang down at the corner bar-salon is so happy to see me they’ve been buying packs of cigarettes for me to enjoy.”
Dermatologists have a term for the effects of tobacco on skin: “smoker’s face,” defined as premature deep wrinkling and discoloration of facial skin.
Why, that’s an insult! How dare they engage in such cruel name-calling! It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if the People for the Sensitive, Easily Hurt Victims of Being Alive filed a class-action lawsuit against every physician in America for such abusive language!
I’m not as quick as I used to be, but it seems to me that a patient receiving a face transplant who willingly endangers her skin graft is like a lottery winner who, flush with cash, can finally begin to make arrangements to receive all that money Dr. Olu Oboba, the Nigerian Minister of Natural Resources has been begging to send him.
