Taiwan-born physician Andrew Lee (李為平) is scheduled to head a three-man team at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, that is to conduct the first penile transplant surgeries in the US for soldiers wounded in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine has given permission for the team to conduct experimental surgery on 60 veterans within the year, the New York Times (NYT) reported on Monday.
Lee, chairman of plastic and reconstructive surgery at Johns Hopkins, immigrated with his family to the US when he was 15 years old.
He established his authority in limb transplants in 2013 after surgically transplanting two arms for a veteran who had been wounded in the second Iraq War.
The proposed 60 surgeries are to be restricted to men who have suffered genitourinary injuries in combat, the hospital said.
The school will monitor the results and decide whether the operation procedures could become standard for such surgeries in the future, the NYT said.
The transplant should, over a matter of months, restore urinary function, sensation and even the ability to have sex, the university said.
Lee said it was a “realistic goal” for those who had undergone the transplant to father children, with the newspaper reporting that it would be their own sperm and not that of the donors, provided the recipient’s testes were intact prior to the surgery.
Jeffrey Kahn, a bioethicist at Johns Hopkins, said it was essential for families of organ donors to be asked for specific permission.
“It is not assumed that people willing to donate kidneys or livers will also consent to having their loved one’s genitals removed,” the NYT quoted Kahn saying, adding the surgeons want a relatively young donor to increase the odds that the transplanted organ will function sexually.
Medical journal data show only two reports of penis transplants: one in China in 2006, which was not successful, and one in South Africa last year, which was.
CHANGING LANDSCAPE: Many of the part-time programs for educators were no longer needed, as many teachers obtain a graduate degree before joining the workforce, experts said Taiwanese universities this year canceled 86 programs, Ministry of Education data showed, with educators attributing the closures to the nation’s low birthrate as well as shifting trends. Fifty-three of the shuttered programs were part-time postgraduate degree programs, about 62 percent of the total, the most in the past five years, the data showed. National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) discontinued the most part-time master’s programs, at 16: chemistry, life science, earth science, physics, fine arts, music, special education, health promotion and health education, educational psychology and counseling, education, design, Chinese as a second language, library and information sciences, mechatronics engineering, history, physical education
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) yesterday appealed to the authorities to release former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) from pretrial detention amid conflicting reports about his health. The TPP at a news conference on Thursday said that Ko should be released to a hospital for treatment, adding that he has blood in his urine and had spells of pain and nausea followed by vomiting over the past three months. Hsieh Yen-yau (謝炎堯), a retired professor of internal medicine and Ko’s former teacher, said that Ko’s symptoms aligned with gallstones, kidney inflammation and potentially dangerous heart conditions. Ko, charged with
RSS