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Finding
a good transplant surgeon
Finding a good hair transplant surgeon can be (and should be)
hard work. A hair transplant is a serious undertaking. It is a
surgical procedure with all the risks that entails. It is expensive.
It is a procedure that will take a long time and multiple surgical
sessions to complete, and the end rest is something permanent that
you will have to live with. So you are looking for a hair transplant
surgeon with lots of experience, who trained professionally and
learnt from other experienced transplant surgeons, who can give
you a quality, natural looking hair transplant, for a reasonable
price. Frankly, not all hair transplant surgeons are equal and
some are just cowboys. You might think that to be qualified to
do a hair transplant you need a particular qualification. In fact,
you don’t need any qualification other than a standard MD
degree. General practitioners can set themselves up as hair transplant
surgeons without any additional qualifications – they don’t
even need to see a transplant procedure. As a result there are “transplant
cowboys” out there who may claim to be able to do a hair
transplant procedure but in reality their experience and expertise
is extremely limited. They may not give you a “good” hair
transplant. To be fair, there are relatively few cowboys around,
most hair transplant surgeons learnt the procedures from other,
experienced surgeons and they usually attend conferences and workshops
to keep up to date on all the latest procedures. But because of
the lack of regulation in the hair transplant industry, you do
need to be careful about who you choose to conduct your hair transplant.
This section of keratin.com will give you some ideas of how to
find a good surgeon, the kinds of procedures available, and what
to expect if you decide to get a hair transplant.
Sorting
the good from the bad - questions to ask yourself about your
prospective hair transplant surgeon and clinic
Before and during your contact with your prospective
hair transplant surgeon and clinic, you need to look for signs
and signals that
this surgeon and clinic is capable of providing you with a quality
result – a natural looking hair transplant. Unfortunately
there are a number of clinics and surgeons out there that do poor
quality work. A bad hair transplant is very difficult to fix – it
is much better to get a good hair transplant first time around.
Before, during and after the clinic interview there are some questions
to ask yourself privately to try and reduce the risk of getting
a hair transplant from a cowboy surgeon.
1) How did you find out about the clinic and the surgeon? In the
yellow pages or by personal recommendation? A personal recommendation
by someone who has already had a transplant from the clinic / surgeon
you are considering is best. Then you can see the results of their
work and you can ask the person who had the hair transplant about
their experience as a patient. If you don’t have a friend
or colleague who can give you a recommendation, it’s okay
to start with an advertisement or even the yellow pages, but you
need to do more footwork to find out whether the surgeon / clinic
is good.
2) How long has the clinic / surgeon been in business? If the clinic
/ surgeon has been around for a few years it suggests they must
have a regular stream
of (presumably satisfied) customers to stay in business.
3) What reputation does the surgeon / clinic have? These days with
the availability of powerful search engines on the internet it
is fairly easy to find out other
peoples’ opinions of the clinic / surgeon involved (start with google.com – still
the best search engine out there in my opinion). Just type in their name and
see what comes up.
4) What reputation does the clinic / surgeon have in the business
and legal arena? You could check with the better business bureau
or equivalent in your
area and check for any lawsuits brought against the clinic / surgeon. Often
this can be done online. Contact your state medical board to see if any complaints
have been filed against your hair transplant doctor or hair transplant clinic.
5) What qualifications does the surgeon have? Is he/she a member
of a professional organization specifically for the hair transplant
profession? There are a few
professional organizations (eg. In North America - The International Society
of Hair Restoration Surgeons (ISHRS)) that attempt to improve hair transplant
standards and ensure members do quality work. Membership of these organizations
is not a guarantee that the surgeon is good, but it helps.
6) In your contact with the clinic what is your general impression?
Is the clinic in its own physical location or is it run from
the back office of a
general practice? Many hair transplant and cosmetic surgery clinics are in
standalone buildings, others may be attached to larger dermatology clinics,
each of which is valid. But some “clinics” are run by renting time
in a surgery to do the operation and the only physical location may be a rented
office not connected to a medical establishment. These small operations with
a limited or no permanent location give cause for concern. They are harder
to monitor and more difficult to contact if things go wrong.
7) What is your impression in the interview? Does the surgeon sounds
like he / she knows what they are talking about? Do they show
pictures of their own
work? Do they explain the risks as well as the benefits of hair transplantation?
8) Do you feel some personal compatibility with the surgeon? You
will be having a relatively intimate, albeit professional, relationship
with this individual
over a period of time if you have multiple hair transplant sessions. You need
to feel comfortable with who you are dealing with.
9) How pressured do you feel to sign up for the hair transplant?
If you feel unduly pressured it is better to walk away. Give
yourself time to think about
it. You can always sign up later or find a different clinic. Clinics and surgeons
that push hard to get you to sign up may be losing sight of their professional
conduct requirements – to put the patient before profit.
10) Prior to the surgery, did you actually meet with the surgeon
who will oversee the transplant? Or did you just interview with
a representative consultant,
a nurse, or a technician? You should expect to see the surgeon at least once
prior to the actual surgery. It is fairly normal to have your first interview
with a representative who just explains the basics and talks about costs, but
at some point prior to the surgery taking place you must interview with the
surgeon conducting the hair transplant, and have them design a specific transplant
approach for your particular hair loss situation. This interview should be
quite in depth, not a brief “hello”. The surgeon should expalain
the procedure to you in detail and explain risks involved. If you don’t
see the surgeon before the procedure, or get only limited information, walk
away from this clinic.
11) Who will actually conduct the surgical procedure?
It is not necessarily going to be the surgeon who will conduct
the procedure
form start to finish.
Hair transplants usually involve quite a lot of people. There are usually several
technicians and a couple of nurses in addition to the surgeon. The technicians
will look after the processing of the donor skin to isolate the hair follicles
ready for transplantation. The nurses will look after you in general, get the
surgical instruments ready, and maybe give you the anesthetic injections. The
nurses may also actually do some of the hair follicle implantation. This is
okay, but you should expect the surgeon to be there to oversee what is going
on. Almost always, the surgeon him/herself will deal with the most important
parts of the procedure. The removal of the donor skin is very important and
needs to be done by the surgeon. Implanting the hair line should also be done
by the surgeon. But filling in behind the hair line may be done by nurses under
the surgeon’s guidance. There are a lot of hair follicles to transplant
to cover a large area of skin so with two people working either side of the
head you can get the implantation done in half the time. This is important
as the longer the hair follicles sit around in saline the slower they will
recover and start growing hair once they are implanted. Although nurses may
do some of the hair follicle implanting, you should expect the surgeon to be
present or in close proximity so they can be called upon during the procedure.
If the surgeon is not going to be present and the procedure is to be done entirely
by nurses or technicians, this is cause for concern.
12) Is your hair transplant surgeon's practice dedicated
solely to surgical hair restoration? And if not, what percentage
of
his/her practice is? How many
hair transplant operations does the surgeon conduct in a week/month/year?
Some clinics and surgeons are exclusively focused on hair transplantation,
they
do nothing else. This is another indicator that the clinic and surgeon have
extensive experience in hair transplantation. Other surgeons divide their
time between hair transplantation and other clinical duties.
This is not unusual,
especially if the dermatologist works at an academic institution or is in
public health. In many countries such as Canada and the UK,
it is not unusual for
a hair transplant surgeon to have a job in the state health program consulting
with outpatients, but to also work part time in a private hair transplant
clinic. However, you should expect your surgeon to be conducting
hair transplants on
a regular basis averaging at least one a week and preferably more.
The above is not a comprehensive list of questions to consider,
but it will help get you started.
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