Spanish Doctors Claim World's First Full-Face Transplant

A Spanish surgery team has made the world’s first full-face transplant. After accidentally shooting himself in the face, a young Spanish farmer could not breathe or eat without assistance.

The surgery is the 11th known face transplant worldwide and is the first full-face transplant in which doctors lifted an entire face, including jaw, nose, cheekbones, muscles, teeth and eyelids from a donor. The donor face was then attached like a mask to give the farmer a new face according to Dr. Joan Pere Barret who was part of the team at Barcelona’s Vall d’Hebron Hospital that performed the historic surgery.

However, the claim of a full-face transplant is being disputed by Dr. Maria Siemionow, who was the first doctor to perform a face transplant in the United States.