Iain Hutchison

Iain Hutchison is one of the world's leading oral and maxillofacial surgeons and he takes on the topic of 'what's in a face?' in his fifteen minutes, challenging the audience with images and ideas that get to the root of human identity. What is the meaning of the face for a person's identity? What kind of discrimination confronts people with severe facial disfigurement? What is the psychological- and material- benefit of having surgery to reconstruct the face? What are the relative benefits of pioneering surgery of the type which Iain Hutchison has developed? What are the other reasons that people become anxious about their identities, such as body dysmorphic disorder? All these questions and more are confronted in this talk which makes us think about both how we perceive ourselves and how others perceive us.