A New Face: A Bold Surgeon, an Untried Surgery - New York Times

A New Face: A Bold Surgeon, an Untried Surgery - New York Times: "A New Face: A Bold Surgeon, an Untried Surgery
By MICHAEL MASON
In an emergency room at a Finnish hospital, a man sprawled unconscious on an operating table as surgeons labored to reattach the hand he had lost hours earlier while chopping wood.
Medical miracles take many forms, but few are as vivid and immediate as this: As the tiny blood vessels were sutured back together, the patient's hand flushed from porcelain to pink. The delicate tendons of the palm revived, and the skin's granite glaze began to soften.
The man's fortunes had taken a remarkable turn. So, too, had those of Dr. Maria Siemionow, a surgical resident assisting in the operation.
'That you could restore to people a part of themselves that had been lost, and actually see it become vital again, was miraculous to me,' said Dr. Siemionow, a native of Poland who trained in Finland and the United States. 'I have never forgotten that day.'
Thirty years later, microsurgery is a commonplace marvel, and as director of plastic surgery research at the Cleveland Clinic, Dr. Siemionow, 55, is a leading practitioner. "