title: The surgical suite.
abstract: In this short essay I focus on two ethnographic scenes from the operating room in order to show the OR as a place both assiduously sterile and deeply intimate. In the process of these Facial Feminization Surgery procedures, surgeons and other OR staff reflect on the social changes that the surgery may (or may not) enable even while they are working to enact physical changes in the faces of their patients.
authors.affiliation: University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA. eplemons@umich.edu
authors.forename: Eric
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Plemons
mesh_terms: D003142:Communication; D006801:Humans; D007400:Interprofessional Relations; D009873:Operating Rooms; D011369:Professional-Patient Relations; D057829:Gender-Affirming Procedures; D014189:Transsexualism / Q000601:surgery*