• The young man, whose identity is being protected for ethical reasons," has made a full recovery -- a result which the doctors did not expect to occur until about December 2016. The recovery includes, "restoration of all the patient's urinary and reproductive functions.
  • The patient's penis was amputated after complications arose from a traditional circumcision, which was performed during a coming of age ceremony. Such initiation practices are common in African nations, but have increasingly come under scrutiny for risk of complications.
  • Doctors used techniques developed, in part, for the world's first facial transplant. Dr. André van der Merwe, the head of the team of doctors said, "We used the same type of microscopic surgery to connect small blood vessels and nerves, and the psychological evaluation of patients was also similar."

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