Choosing the right hair restoration 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.
Those considering hair transplant surgery today are likely to find themselves overwhelmed with the number of doctors representing themselves as specialists in the field. While many of these doctors are indeed reputable surgeons with excellent credentials and vast experience, many others have only the minimal training necessary to perform the procedure. As with all surgical procedures, hair transplant surgery carries with it potential risks. A qualified and proven surgeon will thoroughly evaluate the patient prior to the procedure. He or she will take into account any preexisting conditions or other factors which may lead to potential risks, and that surgeon will have been trained to immediately recognize and react to any unforeseen complications.

If you’re not sure where to get started, ask your physician for a recommendation. If your have friends or colleagues who have undergone hair restoration, and you like the result that they have, ask them for a recommendation. Personal recommendations from somoene who has had a transplant and has no finanical interest in making the recommendation is probably the most reliable method of finding a good hair transplant surgeon. If you do not have these options available to you, search around o nthe internet for recommendations - but remember that some people making recommendations for hair transplant surgeons on the internet have been paid to do so. Look for surgeons that seem to have a long track record of hair resotration. Look to see if they have published reports in medical journal articles on hair restoration. These articles are usually reviewed by their peers for suitability for publication so publication implies the surgeons claims in the articles should be valid. When you interview at hair restoration clinics, ask to see pictures of pervious patients who have undergone hair restoration. Make sure that the pictures you see are of patients actually operated on by your particular surgeon and not a different surgeon!

Once a surgeon has been chosen based on their proven experience and successful results, the hair transplant candidate should thoroughly evaluate and discuss with their surgeon the goals and desired results of the procedure. The surgeon should communicate to the candidate all details of the procedure, including the benefits and risks of the surgery, how the surgery is performed, and whether or not the candidate's goals are realistic. All questions and concerns should be satisfactorily answered prior to the procedure, and at no time should a candidate feel pressured to carry out the procedure with a surgeon they do not feel comfortable with.

Prior to surgery, the doctor should provide you with specific pre-operative instructions on how to prepare for the surgery. These may include guidelines on eating, drinking, smoking, the avoidance of certain vitamins and medications, and other important considerations. It is very important to follow carefully your surgeon’s instructions in order for both the surgery and recovery to go as smoothly as possible.