Greetings all,

Dr. Ron Shapiro has finished his surgery demonstration this past week at the ISHRS Regional Workshop in Rome, Italy. I've documented parts of the procedure to give you a little glimpse into what is involved at these workshops. It's never easy to be away from one's normal surgical settings, but with ample experience, we're prepared for anything that may happen. Fortunately, all went smoothly without a hitch.

Friday morning we were up early to take a taxi to the small hospital in which the demonstrations were to be held. The protocol is a little different in europe than in most US clincs. In this case, the surgery room is bigger than most surgery rooms for workshops. Because the venue was a hospital setting, the attendees were only able to watch via video satellite rather than being able to watch live in the same room. Yes, the members or attendees have been able to look over the shoulder of docs and techs. They limit the number of live viewers, however, it can get crowded and hot with tons of questions thrown your way. In this instance, the only other non clinic personnel were the camera men. There is a moderator in the viewing room who goes back and forth to surgery rooms with questions for the doctors from the attendees. We had a large monitor in our surgery room to view what the attendees were seeing at the same time.

Only two surgeries were going at one time at this demonstration. Two more surgeries will take place after the first two and more surgeries are scheduled for tomorrow. The other surgery was being done by an Italian doctor using the stick and place method (the doctor makes an inicision and a graft is inserted immediately).

SMG's demo patient is a 35 year old male provided by the workshop coordinators with NW5-6 degree loss. In a normal setting, he would be a good mega session candidate but for demonstration purposes, he received around 2000 grafts. He will have a natural thin coverage to this frontal 1/2. Basically a good head start on his hair restoration goals. His donor density is also average.

The techs cutting the grafts were from The Moser Medical Group from Vienna, Austria. We were fortunate to have so many of their techs help with the prodedure. They utilize the mantis microscope and trim the grafts like SMG techs. It's always great to see how other clinics set up and work. Karl Moser helped keep count of the number of incisions for Dr. Shapiro and planted along side me for majority of the time. An experienced tech from Dr. Haber's clinic also helped with part of the planting. All in all, the surgery went well and our patient is excited to see his results.

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I'm employed as the lead medical tech and surgical manager for the Shapiro Medical Group. Feel free to ask me any questions.

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Dr. Ron Shapiro and Dr. Paul Shapiro are members of the Coalition of Independent Hair Restoration Physicians.

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