My New Hand; Heading Out; The Railway – TV review

A hand transplant has huge ethical and psychological ramifications – so why on earth did they turn this account of an operation into a gameshow?Which body part most defines being human? Professor Simon Kay of Leeds General Infirmary reckoned it was the hand; it's the means by which we make many of our most intimate physical contacts with the outside world. As Prof Kay stood to make a name for himself by performing Britain's first hand transplant, you could say he had a vested interest, but the patients who sought him out to remodel their limbs and lives in My New Hand (BBC1) made a compelling enough case in his favour.As with so many medical documentaries, the skill and care of the hospital staff mixed with resilience and courage of the patients was inspiring, but this was a film that needed to be as much about ethics as pioneering microsurgery. And while the ethical questions weren't avoided, they got a very gentle ride. There may have been 80 or so hand transplants performed worldwide by now, but limb transplantation still raises serious issues. It's not a matter of life or death, as with the heart and liver, and the idea that a donor's family would find it hard, given the publicity, to see their relative's hand reattached to another person makes any decision to go ahead a minefield. I would have no idea what I would do in those circumstances.It's also far from a straightforward decision for the person receiving the limb. Just how much ownership can anyone feel for someth...
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