Human Face Transplant: An Equinox Special (Ch4): I SUPPOSE the title of this programme should have given a clue not to watch it while eating your dinner. But, naively, I settled down with my microwave meal to learn how close we really are to space-age surgery.

Needless to say, I soon forgot my stomach and was fascinated by this documentary, which managed to be graphic without being ghoulish and sensationalist.

It started by showing the miracles surgeons around the world are already performing. A man, who was skewered on a long metal pipe which took half his face off, has hardly got a scar to show for his ordeal. When he was brought into casualty, a quick-thinking surgeon took his nose (which had been cut off by the pipe) and kept it, so it could be reattached. To make sure it didn't die, the nose was grafted under the skin of the man's arm. An ingenious idea, giving the man a momento of his accident, was to keep the pole in his garage to show to unsuspecting visitors.

The nearest we have come to a face transplant so far is the case of a little girl whose face was pulled off like a mask when her hair got caught in a grainer. Surgeons, who unsurprisingly, described it as the worst case they had ever seen, spent hours putting her face back on. This led to suggestions that maybe a face could be transplanted from a dead person to someone badly disfigured.

Professor John Barker is the man who wants to perform this first transplant. As a child, he used to transplant the tails from rats and mice using anaesthetic his father (a doctor) got for him from his surgery. From this very dubious start, Prof Barker has gone on to be one of the leading experts in his field. He has gathered a team ready to perform the first face transplant but first, they need someone who is willing to have the surgery and a family willing to give up the face of a loved one.

If anyone wanted the surgery, you would think American Jacqueline Saburido would be first in the queue. The beautiful student was burnt so badly in a car fire she was not expected to survive. With immense bravery, she has rebuilt her life, but is still hugely disfigured. Despite this, she is unsure whether she wants to have the first face transplant - with breathtaking honesty, she explained that she has got used to what she has and if the surgery went wrong, she could lose the gifts she has been left with, such as sight and hearing.

She said before the accident (caused by a drunk driver) she used to curse when she broke a nail. Now she has no fingers, so she has learnt to appreciate what she has.

She has appeared in anti-drink drive adverts alongside the man who caused her crash and wants to return to college so she doesn't spend her life communicating over the phone and Internet.

Doctors say they are looking for a recluse or someone who cannot live their life because of their disfigurement to volunteer for the face transplant surgery. They obviously knocked on the wrong door when they approached Jackie - an inspiring and courageous woman whose story must have humbled everyone who watched her.

Published: 25/06/2004