Countercurrent: Conversations With Professor Roger Kneebone

Mr Dan Saleh, a consultant in Newcastle, is an expert in reconstruction after complex cancer surgery. In this conversation we start by discussing the unique characteristics of this branch of surgery and the skills of moving living tissue from one part of a patient’s body to another. We then explore issues around face transplantation, an area which raises profound issues around identity and personhood. As a surgeon in a research group with a special interest in face transplantation - a procedure not yet performed in the UK - Dan talks about the ethical and scientific issues he and his colleagues have to address.