Medical experts at Johns Hopkins Hospital have been working hard to develop plans for the first US penis transplant, but prior to that, they are trying to seek answers for some strange and complicated questions. This will be the first ever transplant in the United States. Earlier, two penis transplants have been conducted in other parts of the world. One was successful, one failed.

Here’s the number of challenges present on the way. Dr. Richard Redett, director of pediatric plastic and reconstructive surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, said that in the beginning, the focus will be on people suffering from post-traumatic deformities, mainly veterans injured in battle.

On the website of the hospital, he explained that numbers of such veterans suffer from other injuries, making conventional penile reconstruction impossible, which uses an implant and tissue from the patient’s other body parts.

Furthermore, the recipient will need to undergo a battery of tests, such as psychiatric evaluations before he gets approval for surgery.

While explaining on the website, Carisa Cooney, clinical research manager, Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, said, “Psychiatric evaluations for patients can take up to a year. There’s a significant loss with the initial injury that the patient has to overcome emotionally, so we make sure to have a psychiatrist, who is also an expert in psychosexual disorders, on the team”.

Next is the working of the Transplant? Unlike heart, lungs or liver, organ donations, doctors have to acquire special consent for this donation. Furthermore, the tissue of the donor will be examined to make sure it matches multiple factors, like the blood type, skin tone of the recipient and must belong to within a five- to 10-year range of the age the recipient’s age.

Thereafter, the donor tissue would be attached to the recipient carefully in an operation wherein nerves and blood vessels are attached again.

Even if the operation goes as projected, the surgeons can’t promise success in a revolutionary and complicated surgery.