“Facing” the Future of Transplants
It，s still one of the mythic feats of medicine transplanting the organs of one human being to another. It seemed the stuff of science fiction when Dr. Christian Barnard performed the very first heart transplant operation 36 years ago. Liver lung and kidneys transplants are now almost routine. But surgeons are once again about to go where medicine has never gone before. They，re preparing for the first transplant of a human face. Technically the operation could be performed now but ethically should it be performed at all？
It，s what makes us unique the thing most idolized on a model and the sign age is catching up with us.
“The human face is you， ” says Dr. John Barker. “Take that away-could it benefit you to give you a face back？” Dr. Barker is on the cutting edge of a radical new surgical procedure. He，s part of one of at least five medical teams worldwide who are pioneering a new technique that seemed unimaginable until recentlya total face transplant.
It would be an extreme procedure for the most extreme cases primarily for cancer patients and seriously disfigured burn victims.
Could a single face transplant be the answer for thousands of patients with severe facial deformities？For some it could be a medical miracle to others it seems macabre.
Medical technology has advanced so far that a facial transplant is not only possible but it has a high likelihood of succeeding. Now the question raised at a symposium here in London is not can they be done but should they be done.
The main topic was the ethical implications of such a transplant.
There are severe risks. The recipient would have to take antirejection drugs for life the recipient could even die from infection and what，s more unlike a heart or lung transplant. this is not a matter of life or death. So some people have problems with facial transplants because the recipient isn，t necessarily near death.
Then there is psychological impact of using someone，s face. It，s their identity. It，s who they are. Could there be a possibility that a family member might think that the recipient closely resembles the donor？
It，s still unclear exactly when this procedure might happen. Doctors in Britain say they，ve already been approached by at least 10 patients eager to undergo a facial transplant.
“变脸”的未来
将一个人的器官移植给另一个人，仍然是一个神话般的医学绝技。36年前，克里斯琴·巴纳德博士完成了第一例心脏移植手术，当时这好像是科幻小说中的情节。现在，肝脏、肺和肾脏的移植可以说很普通了。而外科大夫们将再次进行医学上从未有过的尝试。他们正准备进行第一次人类脸部移植。从技术上来看，这种手术现在就可以进行，但在伦理上，是否应该进行这种手术呢？
脸使我们不同于他人，在模特身上它是最令人着迷的部位，脸还是我们年龄变化的标志。
“脸就是你的身份，” 约翰·巴克博士说。“将你的脸切除，然后给你贴上另一张脸，这对你能有什么好处？”巴克博士正处在一项全新外科手术研究的最前沿。他是一个医学团队的一员，目前全球至少有5支这样的团队，他们正在开创一种直到最近还看似不可想像的新技术——整脸移植术。
对于最极端的病例，主要是癌症患者和因烧伤严重毁容患者来说，它将是一个极端的过程。
仅靠一次的脸部移植就能够治好数以千计的脸部严重畸形的患者吗？对有些人来说它会是一个医学奇迹，对另外一些人来说它似乎是可怕至极的。
目前医疗技术如此先进，脸部移植不仅是可能的，而且手术的成功率也很高。在伦敦举行的一个研讨会上提出的问题不是“能不能做”，而是“该不该做”这样的手术。
研讨会的主题是关于脸部移植的伦理含义。
这种手术有很高的风险性。受术者必须终生服用抗排异药物，甚至可能因为感染而死亡；而且，面部移植不同于心脏或肺部移植，不是有关生死的问题。所以，一些人对脸部移植有异议的原因是受术者没有面临死亡的威胁。
使用其他人的脸也有心理上的影响。他们的身份是什么。他们到底是谁。受术者的家人是否有可能认为他们的亲人和捐献者极其相似呢？
到底什么时候可能进行这种手术，现在还不清楚。英国的医生说，至少已经有10名渴望接受脸部移植手术的患者和他们联系了。
The American as a Noble Man
When he died Gregory Peck took movie idealism with him.
The movie studio wanted Rock Hudson to play Atticus Finch. Fate decreed otherwise. Gregory Peck got the role of the smalltown Southern lawyer in the 1962 film version of To Kill a Mockingbird. The hero of Harper Lee，s Pulitzer prizewinning novel had been a man much like her father and when the author met the actor on the first day of shooting she noted “Gregory you，ve got a little potbelly just like my daddy.” The star replied “Harper that，s great acting.”
Actually it was great inhabiting. “You never really understand a person...” Atticus says “until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.” Tolerance ripening into empathy that was Peck，s gift in playing an elevated species of American the man of strength and compassion. Today that species is more than endangered it has nearly vanished. But it flourished for most of the actor，s halfcentury onscreen when Americans prided themselves on their fellow feeling for the downtrodden and their ability to uplift the races. Peck was liberal when liberal was cool.
From his early days as the most gorgeous man in pictures in Spellbound and Duel in the Sun to his long prime with a Mount Rushmore visage and the voice of Yahweh on a good day Peck was the sonorous pitchman for movie humanism. He showed how a strong man could also be a gentle man. He counseled ethnic tolerance of Jews in Gentleman，s Agreement and blacks in Mockingbird. As a crusading attorney who is also a gentle single dad to his two young kids Peck made rectitude appear robust. That sanctity had staying power this month the American Film Institute chose Atticus Finch as the top hero in U.S. movie history.
Peck wasn，t just an icon. He was an actor a smart one. He picked hit properties in a wide variety of genres romantic comedy Roman Holiday action The Guns of Nararone horror The Omen . He was bold in taking roles - Ahab General MacArthur - that twisted his nobleman image. He assayed his share of misanthropes including Nazi monster Josef Mengele and western hombres as craggy as a butte. But Peck will be best remembered as the movies， exemplary father figure who often and surprisingly revealed the pacifism at the heart of heroism.
Good example Cape Fear with Peck as the head of a family menaced by alltime cunning sicko Robert Mitchum. At the climax Peck trains a gun on the villain. Shoot，im Greg But no. This time the good guy is not going to kill the bad guy the rotter will be tried convicted and imprisoned. A less confident actor might have let this verdict sound like weakness but Peck sells the notion that life in jail is as unpleasant as a bullet in the gut.