BATTLE CREEK, Mich. -- A successful face transplant has the potential to improve a person's life tremendously, but its failure could force that person to suffer yet another agonizing setback.

Doctors and the Cleveland Clinic are hoping to find the perfect candidate for the world's first face transplant surgery. In the procedure, doctors would take the face elements from a cadaver and transplant them onto a person with a face disfigured from things such as burns.

A young woman from Battle Creek, Mich., gave an insight on the issue the way no one else can, reported WEWS-TV in Cleveland.

As a teenager, Autum Burton worried about the usual stuff -- her weight, her hair, who she'd go to homecoming with.

But one day in chemistry class changed all of that when a beaker of methanol blew up in her face.

"I asked the nurse for a mirror, and she's like, 'Hold on, let's see if I got a smaller one.' I was like, 'No, just give it to me,' and I looked at myself, and I was so disgusted," said Burton.

She's not the only one to deal with this type of disfigurement, and there was no way to hide her scars.

But Burton insisted on moving forward with her life, despite the physical and emotional pain.

But as it turns out, Burton is one of the lucky ones. After 18 plastic surgeries, she's starting to look and feel like a new person.

"I lived my life as this one person, and I had to do a whole 180," said Burton. "It was hard to adjust to. OK, this is who I am now. And this is your life."

Looking as good as she does now, she would clearly no longer be a candidate for a face transplant, but she admits that her heart leapt a little bit when she first heard about it.

"Now I look a lot better because I've been through so many surgeries, but prior, I don't know, I probably would go back and forth with it," said Burton.

Burton has many of the same questions about a face transplant as bioethicists.

"Here's a case where we're wondering, should we do this?" she said.

Burton is on the board of the Phoenix Society, a nationwide burn support organization.

The group is not taking a stand for or against face transplantation, but its members say they support any treatment a patient may choose, as long as he or she knows all the resources available.

Philosophy professor Joe Demarco, who teaches bioethics at Cleveland State University, said there are myriad ethical questions surrounding face transplantation.

But, he said, one thing that should always be considered is how it must feel to have to live with a disfigured face.

"We need to keep in mind that this is a terrible thing not to have a face, so the benefits are potentially great -- not only to medical science, but also to the individual patient," said Demarco.

Burton's days of that kind of disfigurement are behind her, but she understands as well as anyone the need to fit in.

After the accident, Burton went off to college, got a degree and is now following her passion for photography. She works in a Battle Creek photography studio, where she uses a computer program to help erase people's tiny imperfections.

She said she'll be watching closely to see what happens at the Cleveland Clinic and hopes anyone who is medically appropriate and wants the surgery can have it.