How to select your hair restoration doctor?

It is very important to choose the right doctor for hair transplant as it will decide the final outcome in terms of natural looking, density and head full  transplanted hair for rest of your life!

The end result varies depending upon the compassion, hard work, talent, non-commercialness and one pointedness of the doctor.

Before finalising the doctor one should study the following points:

 1) A review of the patients who have undergone hair restoration by the doctor should be done. There should be many patients who are there to speak volumes for the doctor and their overall experience. The doctor/centre should be able to provide the contact details to the index patient.

The results of his surgery should be analyzed based on the following criteria: 

a. The hairline: should look totally natural. It should be M - shaped and the deepest points in both the corners should be aligned in the same plane as the outer angle of eye.
b. The hair in the frontal line should be arranged in a feathery pattern with less density in the front and more density in the deeper parts of hairline.
c. The angle at which the hair point forwards should vary between 10 to 15 degrees. 
d. The curl of those hair should be in such a way that the concavity points downwards. 
e. In the crown the hairs should be arranged in a whorled pattern with less density in the centre of the whorl and more density towards the periphery of the whorl.
f. There should not be any halo of baldness surrounding the whorl which renders an extremely bad look. 

In the nutshell, nobody should be able to tell that the person had a hair transplant. 

“Transplanted hair should look Non-transplanted.”

2. There shouldn't be any elevation or depression at the base of new hair follicle. 

3. The ability to provide a good density. 

4. The ability to perform a large number of follicular unit grafts. This helps to provide a good density in patients with partial baldness. And in other patients, with advanced grades of baldness, it helps to provide coverage to the complete bald area.

The doctor: 

1. Should be well qualified with good practical experience in hair restoration. 

2. Ability to do both FUT and FUE with great proficiency. It is advocated that in advanced stages of baldness, a combination of both FUT and FUE, renders the best results.

3. It is advisable that the doctor should also be trained in basic and advanced cardiac life support.

4. The doctor should be able to tell the patient when not to go for hair transplantation and other effective medicine programs to prevent further hair loss. The doctor should have a holistic approach to treat the patients of hair loss. The doctor should not push the patients for the surgeries. Even though the patients are adamant for surgery, if there is no scientific and ethical indication of the procedure then the doctor should be able to resist that.

5. Full time vs Part time: Is the doctor doing hair transplantation as solo practice? If he is also doing other cosmetic surgeries then his focus and energy is diluted and most likely he is not doing justice with hair transplantation.

6. The doctor should attend the national and international conferences and workshops. The ISHRS (International society of hair restoration surgery) is the largest and the most advanced society of hair restoration surgeons committed to physician training and patient education. It is also committed to research and defining the highest ethical standards in the hair restoration practice.

The centre: 

1. The centre should be focused upon patient care and not upon booking the dates and number of patients per month.

The PHILOSOPHY of the centre should be:

Science...Ethics...Commerce, not the reverse.

2. Should be clean, tidy and hygienic with a pleasing ambience. 

3. Should carry out stringent measures for hospital infection control. Regular microbiological investigations to detect the presence of any growth of micro organisms in the operation room. 

4. In the ideal situation, the operation room should also have the facility of laminar flow.

5. The ideal hair restoration operation theatre should be spacious with adequate lighting with LED lights. 

6. There should be adequate numbers of stereo microscopes. 

7. The surgeon should use high quality magnification in the range of 4X to 6X.

8. The implantation should be carried out using 'no root touch' technology..

Why is there cost variation among different centres?

It's not that more the cost, the better the centre, but there are a lot of reasons of the cost variation.

1. Some centres run a chain of clinics and get the work done by hired doctors/technicians. These clinics may provide good results at some centres but not so well at the others, because of the difference in the training levels of the surgeons/technicians.

2. Some centres have a huge budget allocation for the marketing and advertising. They tend to recover the cost from the patients only. 

3. The number of hair transplantation technicians: Some centres hire part time technicians and tend to provide inconsistent results because of lack of dedication of part time technicians.