Face to Face: True stories of life, death and transformation from my career as a facial surgeon

Product Description

Think how much of your identity and sense of self is vested in what you see in the bathroom mirror every morning. Now imagine the face you've known all your life being so ravaged by cancer, an accident, a fall, a beating, a car crash or a gunshot wound that it is barely recognisable. And when you leave the house, your disfigurement being met by stares and cruel comments from strangers; even close friends and family members flinching at the sight. Some find this so upsetting that they become virtual recluses.
Now imagine how it might feel, after microsurgery - the person you remember, but had given up all hope of seeing again, looking back at you once more.
Over the years, Jim McCaul has helped countless individuals make this journey. Of course it doesn't provide the answer to all of life's confusions and mysteries. But it's not simply a question of aesthetics or vanity either. It's not just skin deep. It's why he became a maxillofacial surgeon. And why he still feesl the same excitement as he approaches the operating theatre today that he did as a trainee twenty years ago...Think how much of your identity and sense of self is vested in what you see in the bathroom mirror every morning. Now imagine the face you've known all your life being so ravaged by cancer, an accident, a fall, a beating, a car crash or a gunshot wound that it is barely recognisable. And when you leave the house, your disfigurement being met by stares and cruel comments from strangers; even close friends and family members flinching at the sight. Some find this so upsetting that they become virtual recluses.
Now imagine how it might feel, after microsurgery - the person you remember, but had given up all hope of seeing again, looking back at you once more.
Over the years, Jim McCaul has helped countless individuals make this journey. Of course it doesn't provide the answer to all of life's confusions and mysteries. But it's not simply a question of aesthetics or vanity either. It's not just skin deep. It's why he became a maxillofacial surgeon. And why he still feesl the same excitement as he approaches the operating theatre today that he did as a trainee twenty years ago...
Jim McCaul is Consultant Surgeon in Maxillofacial, Head and Neck Surgery at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, Glasgow. He was appointed as Consultant Surgeon in Bradford Teaching Hospitals in West Yorkshire in 2006 and worked there for eight years before becoming Consultant Maxillofacial/Head and Neck Surgeon at the Royal Marsden Hospital, London, in April 2014.
He is the author of 57 scientific papers though this is his first book for the general market.
He lives in Scotland with his family.