How To Choose A Transplant Clinic?

Hello everyone,

I am Dr. Abhinav Kumar, consultant dermatologist and hair transplant surgeon. Today I will be discussing a very important topic called hair transplant. So a lot of people in India all over the world are undergoing hair transplant but with advancement and you can say mushrooming of clinics people are confused how to choose the right doctor or how to choose the right clinic. So today I will guide you on this topic. So I will tell you what are the criteria which clinic or doctor should fulfill before you come to a judgment that he is the right person from here you can get your surgery done.

The two types of degrees or you can say two types of doctors are eligible for doing hair transplant in the world. Number one is MD Dermatologist and second is MCH Plastic Surgery. So dermatology is one feeling which hair transplant is its one of its branches. So someone who is having an MCI recognized degrees in India like MD, DVD, DNB or DDVL is eligible to do hair transplant in India. The second thing is a plastic surgeon, an MCH plastic surgery person. So he is qualified to do surgery on skin. That’s it. So number one is the qualification. The second thing, how frequently he is doing the surgery. So someone who is doing the surgery say once in a month or once in a say two months or once in fifteen days, will not be able to deliver excellent result compared to a surgeon who is doing on a daily basis so because it’s a surgery of hand-eye coordination. So my surgery will become more and finer if I do it on a daily basis. I will gain more artistic and you can say natural results. So you have to see in that clinic or in doctor how frequently he is doing that surgery. So that will ensure great results. The third thing which I want to stress is the technique. There are two types of technique, FUT and FUE real graphics and the third technique is Direct Hair Transplantation. So the fourth one which I want to add is the Robotic Hair Transplant. Robotic Hair Transplant in India is virtually no one is doing. We got it in the robots. We right now make only you can say it’s the extraction process, it doesn’t do the implantation, it doesn’t make the slates, it doesn’t do the hairline designing.

The first is FUT. FUT you can say was one of the oldest procedure. Before that there was one thing called punch grafting. In FUT surgery you take out the strip. So there is a linear scar at the back. So there’s a limitation. You can take out a maximum of 2000 to a maximum of 3000 grafts from the back. That depends on the head sizes. If the head is narrow, maybe 2000 grafts, if the head is wide may be 3000 grafts. So that limits you can say the number of grafts in one surgery. So, someone who is bald from here to here, he may need 6000, so only 2000 FUT may be able to cover this much only. He cannot cover the grounds.

So FUE is possible to extract may be from the same scalp may be 4000 grafts. That depends on the efficiency of the surgeon. Surgeon A which may be able to take all out only 2000, surgeon B may be able to take out 2500 without damaging the tex of the donor. Second thing, ability to take out beard grafts. So in FUE or DST, Direct hair Transplantation you can take out beard grafts as well. Beard, you cannot take a strip from the beard. Right? So in FUE surgery, you can take out the beard and in DST you can take out the beard. So this is the thing.

You should know the technique you are adapting to. Second thing, there is no scar in FUE surgery, in FUT there is a scar. You can get a second surgery after this surgery from the same donor area, you can crew cut your hair in FUE, but you cannot do that in FUT because there is a linear scar at the back. Point number three is you can say the research of the doctor, whether he has published paper, he has written some books, whether he is qualified, whether he is attending the latest in hair transplant, you have to read, you have to research about the doctor. Fifth is patient reviews. So it’s not just about Google reviews or things which you are reading on his websites. You should read on the third party platform, hair transplant network, Google reviews, you can say the Facebook opinion, you should meet actually patients who have got their hair transplant done from them or you should get their phone numbers and talk to them, not one at least ten.

Point number six, you should be able to ensure that he is using the international level of instruments. Now why instruments matters? because the instrument will determine the cost of surgery. So maybe seeing lot of Ads in which people are throwing fleet wise PRP like 6 PRP free sessions of hair transplant, that will not determine your results. What will determine your result? the experience of the surgeon, the expertise of the team. So how many surgeries the team has done? I may have done 1 surgery but my team has made 500 surgeries. So I may be able to deliver an average result. But if I have done 500 surgeries and my team has done 10 surgeries, I may not be able to deliver at all because it’s a teamwork. I may be able to take out the extract the graft, I may draw the hairline, I may make the slates, but the team has to plant, the team has to extract after I do the scoring of the grafts, punching of the grafts. So you have to understand, it’s teamwork. The experience of the team is of the utmost importance. Another point which I want to say is the type of instruments. Now people think that Clinic A is offering this surgery at this price, maybe price say 25,000 for a certain number of grafts, 50,000 for a certain number of grafts and clinic B is charging 1 Lakh plus. So where are the difference?

You have to understand three things. Number one is the experience of the doctor. Second thing is the experience of the team. More the experience, more the salary. Right? if you get the surgery done in say with a very famous cardiologist, he may charge a certain amount of money and from a very young cardiologist, he may charge lesser. So experience matters. That is more important even when you are doing very big surgery when your whole head is bald. Right? because even wastage of 10 grafts is terminal. So you have to understand that. Then the type of instruments, magnifications, so there are things called Carl giles loops, there’s something called plastic 2x loops, the Carl giles loops provides magnification even up to 8x, so more the magnification, more the precision of the surgery. So it’s microsurgery. So if you have more precision, the grafts will not be damaged. So whatever you plant will grow. It’s not how much you plant, it’s how much you grow which matters. Right? Another point which I want to stress is the type of instruments. So there are the international level of instruments, there are local instruments which are made in India. So higher the quality of instruments, less is the damage in the donor area. Say if I can take out 3000 grafts from this area, that is only possible without giving a visible scar that if I use international quality instruments. So, someone who is like Anupam Kher you can say totally bald from here to here, he needs each and every graft is important. He cannot afford wastage.

So if you get something low-cost surgery from a place, so he may take out 2000 grafts but he may damage another 500. But that 500 would have used in the next surgery. That will be only known when he gets the second surgery done. So that is there. Then you have to see whether his results are consistent or not. If you go to the clinic, he may show you one result, two results, but they should have consistency in their results. That only you will come to know when you read about them, research about them, meet a few patients.

So the price should come at last while choosing a clinic, not the first criteria because if you are choosing a clinic with a low cost and it damages your grafts, suppose there are out of 3000 grafts, I am seeing only 1000 grow and that 2000 grafts will never come back. So even if you go to the best doctor in the world in US then also you may not be able to deal with those grafts. So choose a surgeon based on his experience, choose a clinic based on its performance, read about it on different forums and price should be one of the criteria, yes you should go and ask them to give you the best deals but that should not be the only criteria because your grafts are limited and your donor is big. The wall is very very big and the paint is very less. So that’s what I want to tell you all guys. So it’s very important, don’t go after free bias, don’t go after cheap clinics, don’t go after newspaper ads.

Do the research, read about the doctors, read about his qualification, see the instrumentations which he is using, meet his patients or at least call these patients. Don’t meet only one, meet at least 10 and then decide about the clinic and the surgeon because it’s aesthetic thing. It’s not about growing the hair, it’s about growing it in a natural way so that no one can say that you have got a hair transplant. That’s all.

Thank you. Hope we will meet again. Hope you like my video.