Pedro Cavadas (surgeon)

Pedro Carlos Cavadas Rodríguez, born in Valencia in 1967, is a Spanish surgeon who specialised in plastic surgery. He graduated as a doctor from the University of Valencia in 1989 with honours and served as an intern at the Hospital La Fe de Valencia. He is known for transplant firsts. In December 2006 he performed the first double hand transplant on a woman. In July 2011 he performed a world-first double leg transplant on a 20-year-old male amputee, a ten-hour operation because the nerves, blood vessels, muscles, tendons and bone structure all had to be connected. In June 2013 the patient developed an unrelated illness that forced him to stop taking anti-rejection drugs, and the legs then had to be amputated again.