Mike Mays Surgical Procedure - Essay Example

May will always link objects with tactile experience because he has always used his hands to feel objects. May would close his eyes while skiing or coming downstairs because he was more comfortable with the mental maps that he had built over years without the help of vision. So, a blind man when given vision will always be frightened to use objects with the help of sight instead of touch. This is because he is comfortable with his old perception of things and is afraid of carrying out his daily activities in a different way. Sight is, no doubt, a pleasant experience for such a man, like May would see the beam of dust with amusement, yet this new experience will never be able to replace the old experience of touch and mental maps.

The effects of surgery seen in May and his responses to seeing the world around him can be related to the responses shown by a child, but the important thing here is that the learning stops to a great extent after the critical period has passed, and so the child will learn to deal with his new experience of sight much better than May did. For example, as Thompson and Madigan state in their book, “there is no question that children are more adept at learning language than are adults.” The same is the case with the new experience of vision. The critical period ranges from birth to adolescence. A child would tackle the newly restored vision much better than May did because of his learning efficiency.

The special thing about May’s surgical procedure was that it involved stem cell surgery in which the “cells replaced scar tissue and rebuilt the ocular surface, preparing the eye for a corneal transplant”, as Abrams states. This kind of surgery did not leave a scar on the cornea and thus the vision restored is not threatened by the cut or scar. This is a very efficient kind of eye surgery that should be done in adults provided the surgeon is well-trained and experienced. Boyles writes in his article that “the stem cell procedure resulted in successful corneal transplantation in three-fourths of patients with blindness in one or both eyes, caused in most patients by chemical or thermal burns.” Also, insurance should pay for this surgery so that more and more blind patients opt for this and get benefitted. Read More