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Outlook: I Performed the First Penis Transplant

Professor Andre van der Merwe

14/05/2015

I Performed the First Penis Transplant

BBC World Service - Outlook, I Performed the First Penis Transplant

The South African surgeon behind the world's first penis transplant

The doctor behind the first penis transplant; pianist Nick van Bloss; Mexico's patient-run mental health facility; the man who impersonates boxer Manny Pacquiao.

We speak to the South African surgeon who performed the world's first successful penis transplant. Professor Andre van der Merwe led a team of surgeons in a complex nine hour operation to attach a donor organ onto a 21-year-old man. The patient's own penis had been damaged following a circumcision that was performed as part of a traditional rite of passage ceremony.

Nick van Bloss is an acclaimed concert pianist whose career has taken an unusual path. Having retired aged just 21, following a diagnosis of Tourette's syndrome - a condition which he had been suffering from, completely undiagnosed, since childhood - he took a 16-year break from the concert platform before a triumphant return in 2009. Hear him talk about his lifelong relationship with his Tourette's and the piano. 

Vision en Accion is a shelter for homeless people with mental health issues run by its own patients. The Shelter is set in the Mexican desert outside Juarez and it houses 100 residents. Mark Aitken is a London-based film-maker who spent several weeks living there and his film Dead When I Got Here, captures the daily lives of its patients.

The Filipino boxer Manny Pacquiao has barely been out of the news lately - first there was his much anticipated fight against America's Floyd Mayweather which he lost. Then he was facing law suits from boxing fans who accused him of lying about his fitness before the fight, and now there are reports that he may be retiring from the game. Still, at least Manny has one person on his side. Johnny Dagami makes his living from impersonating the famous boxer.


(Picture: Professor Andre van der Merwe. Credit: Stellenbosch University, South Africa)

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