On the day I visited Dr. Rassman and his staff were performing a large megasession of 4,000 plus follicular unit grafts. The patient had extremely high laxity in his donor area, which enabled Dr. Rassman to remove a very large donor strip that was 29 cm long by 2.1 cm wide.

He used a single blade to remove this strip, while minimizing follicle transection and he then did a trichophytic closure to minimize any visible scarring. The technicians then trimmed this strip carefully into 4,185 one, two, three and four hair follicular unit grafts, which were then placed across the top of the patient's entire balding area. The entire procedure, including lunch, took only seven hours.

Given Dr. Rassman's long standing reputation for doing high quality megasessions of follicular unit grafting, both the quality of the work and the speed in which it was completed were not surprising.

To read all the highlights from my visit to NHI go to http://hair-restoration-info.com/eve/forums?a=tpc&s=569...021078082#2021078082

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On the day I visited Dr. Rassman and his staff were performing a large megasession of 4,000 plus follicular unit grafts. The patient had extremely high laxity in his donor area, which enabled Dr. Rassman to remove a very large donor strip that was 29 cm long by 2.1 cm wide.

He used a single blade to remove this strip, while minimizing follicle transection and he then did a trichophytic closure to minimize any visible scarring. The technicians then trimmed this strip carefully into 4,185 one, two, three and four hair follicular unit grafts, which were then placed across the top of the patient's entire balding area. The entire procedure, including lunch, took only seven hours.

Given Dr. Rassman's long standing reputation for doing high quality megasessions of follicular unit grafting, both the quality of the work and the speed in which it was completed were not surprising.

To read all the highlights from my visit to NHI go to http://hair-restoration-info.com/eve/forums?a=tpc&s=569...021078082#2021078082

__________________
Never Forget - It's what radiates from within, not from your skin, that really matters!

My Hair Loss Blog

View some of the Leading Hair Transplant Clinics that I have visited.

Sharing is what keeps this community vital. Please join in. To learn how I restored my hair and started this community, click here.

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Pat...

There is no taking away from Dr. Ra$$mans credentials, he is certainly a well qualified surgeon with state of the art facilities. I am sure he used this patient, with a high degree of scalp laxity, to promote the fact that he can do a megasession. Makes you wonder what a surgeon like Feller or H&W could have harvested from this individual, in my opinion it may have approached 6000 grafts. The only objection I ever had with him was his outlandish fees, for instance using his $10 per graft this procedure probably set back the patient $40,000, way too high in my opinion.

__________________
1,000,000 FUT
DR. MOBOGO
WHEREABOUTS UNKNOWN

sorry but I have to comment on your assumptions:

how do you know that Dr Rassman planned a 4000 graft surgery to coincide with Pat's visit? You know, certain things are booked months in advance.

Also, who do you know the patient wanted to get the max number of grafts in one shot? I can't see why another capable doctor can't get as many grafts as H & W if the patient wanted and was willing to take the risk.

As far as the price: it's a ridiculous attack. If it's too expensive for you, don't go there. In fact, go to a surgeon that charges $2 a graft. The price is quoted upfront, and its your choice.

Cousin,

Fee issues aside, no physician can produce more folicles from the same strip than another. However, they can produce different graft counts, even while ultimately relocating the same number of hairs.

If I take 12 inch pizza and cut it into more slices are your really going to think you're getting a bigger pizza?

That is why my signature says "Count Hairs Not Grafts".

There are no magic wands - only scalpels. Take out a bigger strip you increase not only the size of the session but the risk of visible scarring in the donor area.

To imply that Dr. Rassman and his staff yeild less viable follicles than other clinics is not fair or accurate in my opinion.

__________________
Never Forget - It's what radiates from within, not from your skin, that really matters!

My Hair Loss Blog

View some of the Leading Hair Transplant Clinics that I have visited.

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since John said it above already, i'll second his suggestion that everyone stop bitching about Rassman's prices. given his contributions to this field of medicine, it seems ridiculous that he isn't a member of the coalition already, and if you spend any amount of time reading his blog, you'll soon realize that he was among the ethical vanguard in hair restoration. if you don't want to pay his fees, you don't have to go there. it's that simple. the coalition's goal, i would hope, is not to establish some kind of price fix based on what its members want to pay, but to point people in the direction of the most capable surgeons. everyone can make up his or her own decision given all the relative criteria, price being one.

Pat,

Perhaps I did not make myself clear in my previous statement. You are correct that from a donor strip of x amount, all surgeons should be able to extract the same amount of grafts. My point was, due to favorable scalp laxity, the surgeons I have mentioned would have opted for a larger donor strip thereby resulting in a higher graft count. Since the area to be covered was quite extensive, it would have been in the patients best interests to have a higher density implanted. I myself, had implanted 3700+ grafts in an area half his size in which I had existing follicles, by no means balding. In my opinion this would be far more advantageous to the patient in ultimate appearance and would reduce the likelihood of additional surgery to "fill in" for additional density at a later time. I am sure you will agree with my elaboration of my previous statement now. Thank you for pointing this out so I could clarify.

__________________
1,000,000 FUT
DR. MOBOGO
WHEREABOUTS UNKNOWN

Cousin, how can you sight unseen speculate that other physicians would have gone beyond 2 cm wide? Frankly, the idea of going beyond 2 cm wide in one session with virtually any patient makes the staples in my current donor closure want to snap out and fly across the room (and I did three weeks of donor massages and my donor strip averaged only 0.8 cm wide).

We all hopefully have years ahead of us. Their is no contest that I'm aware of with an award for the most taxing session done in a patients first year. Let's be a little more lax and give the scalp a fighting chance to heal without visible donor scarring.

Hair restoration in my opinion should be more of marathon than a sprint.

__________________
Never Forget - It's what radiates from within, not from your skin, that really matters!

My Hair Loss Blog

View some of the Leading Hair Transplant Clinics that I have visited.

Sharing is what keeps this community vital. Please join in. To learn how I restored my hair and started this community, click here.

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Pat...

Based on your statement "This patient had exceptionally high donor laxity" the only conclusion one can draw is that the patient offered the raw materials for such a donor strip, why not take advantage of it.

Surgeons in this Coalition are supposed to offer the absolute best in hair transplantation, to take advantage of whatever a patient has to offer and maximize on it. Obviously scalp laxity of this degree should be taken advantage of. The bar has been raised by pioneers of the Coalition and it is up to the rest to try to meet it if they wish to retain thier status.

I for one do not wish to make a career of being a hair transplant patient. If at all possible I would prefer to have one procedure and be done with it. I do not relish the thought of multiple procedures, with ensuing recovery periods, when it could have been done in less. I cannot think of anyone who would.

Sorry if we do not agree on this point, and perhaps I am being too critical, but this is the way I feel.

__________________
1,000,000 FUT
DR. MOBOGO
WHEREABOUTS UNKNOWN

Cousin,

You are making a stand on rather weak ground my friend. Lets consider a few points of information that you, I and everyone else here (other than Dr. Rassman, the patient and Pat) cannot know for sure.

1) Maybe the patient and the Dr. discussed a 4000 graft session for reasons only they could know, budget, donor scar stretching concerns, amount of coverage the patient wanted.

2) Maybe the patient is older and wants a diffuse look with all areas covered rather than dense packing in the front. I disagree with you in saying it is the docs responibility to "take advantage of the what the patient has to offer". Lets remember who is paying who, the patient and doc should work together to game plan a strategy but the patient should have the right to ask for what he wants not have the doc decide what he can do. Again, we have no knowledge of their game plan.

3) Maybe this patient wanted to keep a reserve in case something does not work to his satisfaction. If the doctor (even as good as he is) were to screw it up, it would be wise to have some left for repair if needed. Some people may not want to put "all their eggs in one basket".

4) When you say Coalition docs should offer the best in tranplantation, why base this on the number of grafts placed? 4000 is a very large session, it's not a race to see who can do the most grafts, quality vs quanity should apply and 4000 is nothing to sneeze at.


I agree with you that its a pain to go thru recovery of additional work but some may not mind the wait or additional sessions for many reasons. I think Pat for instance, has done four or five procedures of average 1500 a piece. To each there own