Some worry that lower quality medical institutions will abuse the capacity to perform face transplants in order to earn money, taking advantage of the lack of relevant laws. What do you think of this concern?

I have no such worry. At present, face transplant surgery still remains in the experimental phase, and most hospitals will not continue to undertake such surgeries after conducting one or two face transplants. I have mentioned that there are many complications after the surgery. So hospitals will be cautious in conducting such surgeries and they will not take chances.

How do you think the Chinese Government should regulate and promote the development of face transplants?

A related issue is that the practice of recognizing a person's identity by his or her face in our country must be changed. In 2001, one of my patients went to New York for higher education. When she was ready to leave the airport customs, the police stopped her because the photo on her identity card looked unlike her. She had just received cosmetic surgery in my operating room and the police could not recognize her. At last, the customs let her go, after our hospital provided a medical certification with Chinese and English explanations, but she had missed her airplane and had to take the next one.

As well, I have met many people who want to avoid legal responsibilities and have asked for a face transplant. As a doctor, I have no thoughts of refusing them because they are only patients in my eyes and I do not distinguish between good and bad people. According to this condition, I think the government should establish a regulation to prescribe that people who want to undergo face transplant surgery must receive a certificate from the local public security agency. Of course, because face transplants involve many problems, the Central Government ought to establish a special law or regulation.

A face transplant is such a complicated procedure that no one hospital has the ability to do it alone. It takes the cooperation of many scientific fields to achieve it. In my opinion, in the next eight to 10 years, face transplant surgery will not make big breakthroughs and, because there is no chance of the surgery becoming popular, the government will not pay much attention to such a matter.