Tip 3 of 10 To Insure You’ll Get The Best Hair Transplant Procedure:
Large Hair Replacement Clinic or Small Boutique? Depends on the Doctor.
By Dr. John Frank, M.D. | IAHRS, ABHRS, ISHRS, AHLA, XM Radio: ‘The Bald Truth’, NYC, July 17, 2013
Regardless of where you visit for consultations, most if not all transplant offices have patient educators, surgical coordinators, managers, counselors, or closers. For the most part, their job is to educate you about the basics of a hair transplant, answer your questions, and take your medical history. If they’re qualified they may do an initial basic assessment of your loss, and tell you what you can realistically expect from any likely procedure. All this information can help you make the right decision about whether to have surgical hair restoration.
However, they are not doctors, even if they wear white coats. They will not be doing the surgery (they may assist however), and because they are not doctors, they cannot give a diagnosis, a final assessment of your hair loss, or any other medical opinion.
The bottom line is that to insure the best hair transplant possible, you must meet with the surgeon before you make your decision to proceed.
So How Do You Find The Best Doctor For You?
The best way to start to evaluate a doctor is visit clients of the hair transplant doctor you’re considering and see the work first hand. Many hair transplant clinics, ours included, have periodic meet-and-greets & educational seminars that let you meet former patients and ask questions of the hair transplant surgeon. Call a clinic you’re considering to see if they have any upcoming seminars.
Second, during your consultation, make sure the person wearing the white coat is a doctor, not a highly knowledgeable salesperson.
Your doctor, after a thorough examination, should be able to tell you exactly what needs to happen to restore your hair and meet your expectations and what the cost will be. Beware of shady pricing techniques like “low-balling” where you’re given what sounds like a great deal only to come out with unsatisfactory results and the need for another procedure. It is common to have two or more procedures to achieve high quality results, but you should know about that up front. Graft splitting is another shady technique.
You should get the right “vibe” from the doctor. If you don’t, then buyers beware. Just because the office may look good and the salesperson has embraced you, if that’s all you’ve got, you’re less likely to be happy with your hair transplant.
Other Tips for Finding the Best Hair Transplant Surgeon for You.
If you’re just starting out, visit several hair transplant websites. The site should be up-to-date, informative, educational, and you should get a good idea of how the doctor works from the clinic’s specific procedures, detailed case studies, and good before and after pictures that show results from many angles.
Second, check out hair restoration information and recommended surgeon sites like The International Alliance of Hair Restoration Surgeons or the Hair Transplant Network.
Third, the surgeon should be doing follicular unit transplantation (often called FUE or FUT). This state-of-the-art technique is the basis for today’s undetectable natural hair transplants.
Finally, the surgeon should be well trained and credentialed, and his or her results should look good — high quality natural looking hair transplants are an art as much as they are a science. If you can’t meet with actual patients, then spend time with available case studies and before and after pictures.
In the end, you need to trust your doctor to do a great job and you should like and feel comfortable with him or her.
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