TABLE 3.

Representative participant questions.

Success and outcomes of VCA (n = 6 focus groups)

All of [VCA] surgeries been a success?

What’s the percentages of the [VCA] completely working? What’s the percentages of the failure?

Has there been a time you have attached the hand and had to remove it because it just did not work?

Will you function normally [after VCA]?

Suppose the hands or the upper limbs, they get done and everything but they’re not successful. Do they redo it and try to connect it and find the problem? Or that’s it for you?

What was the success rate?

How did the [recipients] accept it? You know, how’s their mental state?

Another concern like going back to psychological aspects, how—a person’s face is almost integral to who they are as a person. How much does the face transplant affect their appearance to the point where they become indistinguishable from who they used to be? Like how successful is that?

Are they still working the same for them? How my hands working when I had, how do they actually feel you know. What type of joy would it bring to them after they have received it?

VCA Surgery Process (n = 6 focus groups)

When you do the kidneys or when you do the blood transfusion, with the hand or the face, do you still have to have that same blood type?

Or is [VCA] like a graft again where they take a part and try to grow it or--?

With the face transplants is it the full face or do they just get parts of their face transplanted?

With these transplants right here, like the uterus and the penis, so when they transplant, do they transplant the full uterus, and the full penis? Or is it partial?

History of VCA (n = 5 focus groups)

Where was the first VCA performed?

Are they doing it in the States?

Now how long have they been doing this procedure, the VCAs?

Is this something being done now or are you talking futuristic?

Timeline of VCA Process (n = 5 focus groups)

How long does the process take for the surgeries and everything? You said you’ve got to match and do the blood and all that. Like, how long would we be waiting?

How long is the recovery?

How lengthy is the process, like donor as well as recipient, to have to fill out complete paperwork? Is it hard or is it easy?

Like the process of rehabilitation, do you have to go through the same process with that transplanted arm or limb, just like if you were to rehabilitate yourself? Would it be like the same process you have to work that hand out or limbs out the same way?

Appearance of VCA Organs (n = 5 focus groups)

When they say face transplant it’s like you completely change it?

How would the face and everything, how would they get you to look close to that skin or something like that?

Will [the donated face] be the exact same look as me?

Does there have to be some kind of compatibility? Like, small versus large, women versus men?

Now do they match color and color?

Cost of VCA (n = 5 focus groups)

Well who will pay for that, insurance would not pay for that, right?

Okay say if it was me and I needed one of these VCA transplants, I would not even be able to afford it because I looked it up and they cost four, five million dollars for some of these so how would that work out for me?

Would insurance cover it or you got to pay for it in cash?

Potential VCA Recipients (n = 4 focus groups)

So [VCA] would only be just for soldiers and veterans?

Was it just a regular person that got it done?

Would [VCA] just be for the other people that can afford it?

With this transplant, does age have anything to do with it? Do you have to be 18 and over or 21 and over to be qualified to do transplant? Or can it be a child?

So can it be used for people who have been severely burned, third degree burns?

Becoming VCA Donors (n = 4 focus groups)

So you can pick [which organs to donate], you can be like, “Okay, you can take their hand or their foot”?

VCA is going to be added to the Motor Vehicles if people want to donate this … ?

Will it become like a part of like a contract where you know when you go to the hospital and you sign the waiver about being treated and everything, will you start putting that into the form, too, like if you want if something happens, would you want your body donated? Would that start becoming inside of that contract?

The question on our driver’s license, it’s just are you a donor, yes or no … did it always imply every part of your body?

You know how you sign up to be an organ donor? You’ve got to actually go and sign up to be a VCA donor? Or is it all composited into one?

Family Authorization (n = 3 focus groups)

Say if somebody is an organ donor and they got one of those “do not resuscitate” orders do they still ask their family for their organs?

So even though you signed off to be an organ donor your family still got to agree with it at the end?

Even if you do not sign off on it, your family will still have to agree at the end anyway, right?

Would you ask [the family] right away when they die, or would you wait? You know, cause some people are grieving, and they get angry, and they’ll be like, “No!” Would you ask right away, or would you wait?

Religious/Cultural Concerns (n = 3 focus groups)

Have you surveyed any other religions, and know which ones would be the ones that say no?

Do they include religion to it as a factor when they go to pick [VCA organs]?

They just do not consider religion and lifestyle? If it’s the same blood type then you’re getting it. That’s how it goes pretty much?

Funeral Concerns (n = 3 focus groups)

When do they take off the face and the hand? After the funeral?

How soon after the person like dies would you take their hands and face?

Will you still be able to have a funeral?

Association of VCA with other medically-related procedures (n = 2 focus groups)

Is it like I can just call and say, “Hey, I want to do this” like plastic surgery?

What if somebody comes in and just be like, “I want a sex change?”

If this is at all possible, then we’re talking about possibly clones. Are we going that far?