Johns Hopkins University gives wounded soldier new penis

From left, Dr. W.P. Andrew Lee, Dr. Richard J. Redett and Dr. Gerald Brandacher at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore this month. They hope to perform what will be the first penis transplant in the United States within a year. Credit Lexey Swall for The New York Times — From left, Dr. W.P. Andrew Lee, Dr. Richard J. Redett and Dr. Gerald Brandacher of Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore hope to perform what will be the first penis transplant in the United States within a year. Credit: The New York Times

A young soldier injured in a bomb blast in Afghanistan will, in a few months’ time, undergo an operation to get a new penis.

If the surgery happens, it would be only the third time such is undertaken the world over and the first ever on American soil.

The organ will come from a deceased donor, and is not expected to start working until after a few months.

Surgeons from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore who will conduct the surgery said the organ will first develop urinary function, then sensation and, eventually, the ability to have sex.

Understandably, doctors who treat young men wounded in combat say that no matter how bad their other injuries are, the first thing the men ask about when they wake up from surgery is whether their genitals are intact.

“Our young male patients would rather lose both legs and an arm than have a urogenital injury,” said Scott E. Skiles, the polytrauma social work supervisor at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System told New York Times.

And according to the United States’ Department of Defense Trauma Registry, 1,367 men in military service suffered wounds to the genitals in Iraq or Afghanistan between 2001 and 2013. Majority of them are under age 35.

If the about-12-hour operation is successful, more wounded troops would benefit from it.

The university will pay for the first operation which is initially on offer only to men injured in combat..