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Questions to ask a clinic ….before paying

Understanding Hair

Understanding Hair

Valued member
Research is so important; standards and quality vary. You don´t want to be in the position of realising you have more (important) questions, …. after you have paid. If you don´t like the answers, it´s likely to be a problem. Never use one doctor as a reference how other doctors may work or behave. The list of questions is lengthy, some generic to having the procedure and some personal, here are a just a few, and anyone is welcome to add more in the replies.

Who performs what during the hair transplant procedure?

- the lead doctor who you saw for a consultation should control the hair transplant procedure and perform the key surgical areas, such as graft punching with FUE and planning the recipient sites. Occasionally another doctor may be present, this should be made clear prior to the operation and ideally if playing a “doctor´s role”, made clear before booking. It´s normal for hair technicians to be active during the procedure, checking and sorting the grafts, as well as hair placement.

The number of hair transplants performed a day/week?

- this helps to build an idea of how the doctor stretches their time between patients and how personal the service and attention will be. There is also the issue of fatigue of the doctor and technicians, if they are working back-to-back large cases, human nature says there is a greater risk mistakes will occur.

Do they have their own in-house trained tech team or use roaming techs?

- while a roaming tech may be individually good, protocols vary between clinics and having a well-trained in-house team helps with consistency, protocols, and standards. As well as being able to work better together as a team, knowing each other’s speeds and strengths. Such as how the doctor prefers a graft to be cut and prepared or graft placement protocols.

Are all the results on the clinic website gallery/social media performed by “my doctor”?

- occasionally doctors have other doctors collaborating with them, so ensure you know whose results you are looking at. Doctors move between clinics, but their patient results remain on clinic websites, as a result especially important you understand who has done what.

What type of after-care does the clinic offer?

- don´t leave this as an afterthought, you want to be sure you have the backing of the clinic whether the result is good or bad. If they have a policy if the hair growth is below expected and will they put this in writing. Having a hair transplant is a big step, and while some like to keep to themselves, many want to feel they have the support of the clinic, someone they can talk to when they feel insecure about the result.

This is far from an exhaustive list and does not focus on an individual´s needs and demands, but a good start to understand credentials and approach to hair restoration.

On a slightly different note, it came up in another post. Online star type reviews. How credible and useful are they, in terms of research. Quite often, reviews are written so soon after the procedure, healing hasn´t finished let alone hair growth started, even bad clinics can often get a complimentary review at that stage. That aside, these reviews are subjective, one person’s good result can be a nightmare for someone else. If a clinic points you to their online star reviews, pick some good ones and bad and ask to be put in touch with them. Trust yourself, not others. A good clinic will always be able to provide credible testimonials and with so many clinics having clients from far and wide it´s a strong chance you can meet a few.

A hair transplant is a big decision, consequently, it´s not wise just to spend an afternoon on your favourite social media channel. But instead take time to research, cross reference and ask questions. For instance, on this platform, a solid place to research and discuss, without bias to any clinic, and able to review real cases in real time.


#hairtransplant #hairrestoration #hairsurgery #research
 
Bigmac

Bigmac

Administrator
Staff member
Some very useful and important questions listed.
 
Understanding Hair

Understanding Hair

Valued member
Thankyou Bigmac,

Another important issue to clarify, is what the clinic claims is a graft. While for the majority of clinics a graft is an intact follicular unit (1 to 4 hair groups), as removed from the donor. On say a 3000 graft case this averages out to around 2.2 -2.5 hairs per graft, smaller cases may come down to average 2 hairs or slightly lower. There is a small exception, with complicated cases when a abnormal number of singles are required and a few larger units are split to make up more singles.

However, not all clinics use the same clarification and a graft can mean whatever they want it to mean, say 1 hair = 1 graft. This not only means, regardless how the cost is worked out, you are paying a lot more per hair/graft, but it will also reflect in the quality of the result.

It can be interesting looking at cases from different clinics that posts the graft/hair count, and see the differences in hair totals to comparable graft numbers. So, check with the clinic what a graft consists of, and always ensure you will receive the graft and hair count after your procedure.
 
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