Pat - Community Publisher

Thanks for sharing Melvin. Feel free to share experiences below what else people can expect during surgery. Bill

Do you enjoy helping hair loss suffers find optimal treatments, physicians and moral support? Are you knowledgeable about hair loss treatments and which clinics are providing optimal hair restoration surgery? If you have good written communication skills and a passion for helping other restore their hair you may be an excellent candidate to help us moderate our discussion forum, create news articles for our community and research potential new outstanding physicians. This part time paid position as a forum moderator and publishing assistant can be done from your home during flexible times. The ideal candidate will have a proven track record of constructive posts on our discussion forum and social network, knowledge and experience with hair loss treatments and hair transplant surgery, and a passion for researching and writing about optimal treatments and leading physicians. Excellent communication skills are essential. Familiarity with web design and online promotion would be a plus. This position has room to grow into more responsibility and compensation for the person or persons who show a strong aptitude for innovating new ideas that help our online community grow more respected and popular. To be considered please message, Patrick - the publisher of the Hair Transplant Network, and provide the following information: Why you are interested in this part time position and why you believe you would do an excellent job. Tell us about your background, education, experience with hair loss treatments and current employment situation and current availability. What skills do you have that could help our online community grow and thrive? Tell us your full name, member name if you are active on our forum and your mailing address, email and phone number. We look forward to learning more about you. Onwards and Upwards, Patrick

Thanks for everyone's input. I will be contacting Joe soon to see if he is willing to work with us in addressing some of our concerns.

P.S. I intend to contact Joe directly to determine his future involvement with this community.

It pains me to read this topic. I remember when this community was begun by me in the late 90's when there was much need for improved techniques, accountability and transparency. Thanks to the vast compassion and sharing of thousands of patients, ethical and skilled physicians and staff and dedicated patient advocates like Joe, Bill and many many others this community established the highest standards in hair restoration and helped thousands of patients distinguish between hype and real patient satisfaction. Together with physicians committed to the very best care we all collectively raised the standards for care and online accountability. Some physicians who received poor reviews or who had their recommendation suspended sued us to either have the poor reviews under the rug or to be reinstated. As a community we held together and stood behind the right of patients to make critical posts when genuine and we prevailed every time in over 13 major law suits over 15 years that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. All for the right of "free" speech and transparency. So I believe in the right of free speech when it is genuine and will fight for it. I believe everyone has a right to their genuine opinions on treatments and physicians. I also believe in reciprocity and working together in cooperation. Joe has benefited from his association with this community as we have from his involvement. Yet on his website where he discusses forums he makes no reference to this forum community nor does he provide a link to it for the benefit of any visitors on his site. Why? We've worked for years to establish a community where only physicians who have been reviewed and screened are formally promoted to the public. In resoproclty to meet our expenses ranging from defending patient free speech, numerous conferences, over 50 visits to leading clinics world wide to document surgeries, technical programing, servers etc etc we do require these clinics to pay a sponsorship fee that is affordable relative to the benefits to them and their patients. This has worked well for patients and leading physicians for well over a decade and saved clinics vast amounts in advertising expenses. Ideally I would like to see us all work cooperatively to provide the very best resources and recommendations. I know that with techniques and physicians changing that researching and presenting the very best is a constant process. I would like to improve this process. I will soon be reaching out to this community to enlist knowledgeable help with this process and in providing additional patient support. Those who do help us improve our recommendations and services will be generously rewarded. Running this community is a big job and we could use more dedicated help. I welcome this community's input on how we can work together to make this community optimal for all. Those who have an interest in such work are welcome to email me directly at pat@mediavisionsonline.com and let me know how you can make this community better, part time or full time. Let's move past division and work together synergistically for the greater good of patients and the clinics who are committed to giving them the very best. There is plenty of to go around, including the work, if we pull together to build on what has already been built with this community. Onwards and Upwards, Patrick Hennessey (the original "Recovering Bald Guy" :-)

Dave, Congratulations to you on ascending into the "celestial" plane - and in 2012 no less :-) All your help and massive karma has propelled you and this community to a new level. Let me know what it's like up there and perhaps I'll join you in a couple hundred more posts. Thanks for all the thoughtful and kind help you bring to this community. You're a true blessing.

Taking the Plunge, Thanks for giving Rizwan such indepth feedback on his thoughtful questions!

Recently DHI requested that we share the following statement, written by them, on our forum. In the interest of fairness to all parties, we have posted their statement below. This statement is their point of view and does not necessarily represent our views or beliefs. We also want to make it clear to all forum members that none of the posts or topics that DHI has had an issue with have been removed or censored on this forum. All parties to these past controversies have had ample opportunity in the past to respond to and debate the issues discussed in the topics in question. It is not our place to be the final arbitrator of truth regarding all claims and statements made by third party posters on our forum. Rather it is up to the adult viewers of this forum to determine for themselves what to believe regarding these prior topics. The purpose of this topic is to provide the below notice on behalf of DHI. No additional posts or replies will be hosted on this topic. Best wishes, Patrick Hennessey - Publisher of this online community Statement by DHI: Dear Sir/Madam RE: Postings about DHI on Hair Restoration Network. “DHI would urge any readers of the comments that appear on this forum about DHI to keep in mind the following. DHI has repeatedly asked that the alleged authors of the comments and opinions expressed about DHI to identify themselves, to state when they had an alleged DHI procedure the dates of the alleged procedure, to post their alleged before and after photos, and which clinic that they had the alleged procedure in order to verify the information posted about DHI. This information was requested in order for the posters to authenticate themselves and prove that they are real DHI clients and base their opinions upon real DHI experiences and this is deemed to be a reasonable and legitimate request by DHI. However to date no information requested has been produced. DHI has also asked for the identity of the posters who defame DHI without being clients of DHI as their sole aim seems to be to cause damage to DHI. DHI has requested to remove such postings that are unverified with the information requested by DHI as they violate the forums own policy. For now the forum has decided to freeze all postings regarding DHI until further notice.”

Thanks Shadow. We do our best and it's good to see our efforts recognized.

Those who have been on this forum for a while know that we host all genuine posts - the good, bad and the ugly - regardless of the physician or clinic. Lisa, I'm not aware of any service called "Medical Justice". But we certainly don't allow anyone to white wash our forum, whether the clinic is recommended or not or they have their lawyer harassing us and breathing legal fire down on us. Fortunately we've stood up to and won so many lawsuits that were intended to censor our forum that physicians in general know we don't cave under legal pressure and now they tend to not file such frivolous lawsuits. As for Dr. Sam Lam, I met him recently at a physician's conference. He presents himself very well. But I do see that he has had some very mixed reviews online. I'd be very disappointed if he did require his patients to not share unfavorable results. Bill and I have emailed his office to learn more about this in order to set the record straight. They have been invited to reply to this topic. Hopefully they are confident enough in their work to believe in the transparent sharing of their patient's experiences. Onwards and Upwards, Pat

DHI - "We love an honest debate and we are here for 41 years because we care .. LOL THE DHI TEAM" Really, "you love an honest debate"? That is truly "LOL" given that today your legal department sent me yet another demand letter that virtually every topic and post that is critical of DHI (a very long list) be removed or you will sue us. You've been threatening to sue this community and many of your patients for years now. What's the hold up? Bring it! I love a good public "debate" and so does this community. P.S. I suggest you have management call some of the other physicians and clinics who brought frivolous lawsuits against this community. Those who've been members of this community for a few years know how that worked out for them.

Those who have been members of this forum community over the years know that we have long defended the right of our members to share genuine experiences and opinions - even when it has cost us tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees. While we go above and beyond what is required by the law to make this forum fair to all parties, we do not cave in to legal bullying. Those clinics that have sued us in an attempt to white wash our forum of critical comments have always lost not only in court but in the court of public opinion. On the other hand, in the interest of fairness, we invite clinics who object to comments made on this forum to share their side of the story. It is then up to the adults who view these comments to determine what they believe to be true. It is not our legal obligation to be the final arbitrators in disputes between clinics and patients. However, in rare instances when posters have intentionally posted information that is proven not to be true, we have removed such misinformation in the interest of fairness. We ask that all posters be truthful in sharing their genuine experiences and opinions and be prepared to back up their claims. I see that ihatedhi has stated that he is will show photos to substantiate his claims. But I don't believe that he has to date. This undermines his credibility and his claims. This forum's authenticity and credibility is based on our long standing policy of letting the truth come out, no matter whether the physician is recommended or not. We've been sued almost a dozen times over the past ten years and will no doubt be sued for years to come. But we've earned a reputation in the hair restoration industry for staying in any legal fight until we prevail. Those who choose to sue us must be prepared to go all 15 plus rounds and have their lawsuit and attempted cover up debated not only in court but in the court of public opinion. In addition, in the entire ten plus years of our forum communities existence we have never provided the identification of any of our members. If DHI sues this community or any of its members they will learn what happens when you beat a beehive full of hornets with a bat. I suggest DHI focus on addressing the concerns expressed by the members of this community rather than making threats. If such threats and intimidation continue their posting privileges will be suspended. All for One and One for All, Pat and this patient based community

To provide clarification, I communicated with Dr. Feller this morning regarding this topic. He informed me that the name of his medical school is the New York College of Osteopathic Medicine at New York Institute of Technology. Those who would like more information about this fully accredited medical institution may visit it's Wikipedia page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_College_of_Osteopathic_Medicine I admit that I have had a long time bias toward proven patient results, state of the art techniques and physician reputation and skill over formal academic background. Over the years I've seen far too many physicians with impressive academic pedigrees who in practice do not provide state of the art results. In the interest of clarity, we will be updating Dr. Feller's recommendation and Coalition profile page on our sites to reflect the complete name of this institution. Best wishes for great results to all, Pat

As has been said previously, it's the involvement of hair loss sufferers and patients sharing info and experiences that really makes this a true community. We've worked to provide numerous resources - patient web sites, blogs, albums, posts, private messages, comments, etc - to enable visitors to share and interact. But ultimately it's up to the visitor to use these resources. I really appreciate the sense of responsibility and generosity that some of our members have in knowing that they benefited from what others shared and so when their surgery came they decided to "pay it forward" and share their experience and results. The more this sharing happens the more community we create. One of my greatest concerns over time has been trying to get a wide range of patients and clinics to share their results - the good, the bad and the ugly. Too often in the past only a handful of clinics actively posted their results (their very best standout results), while many clinics did not post at all. In recent years we've succeeded in getting virtually every clinic recommended on this community to share at least one patient result each month on the Results Posted by Leading Hair Restoration Clinics forum. This has helped. We'd also like to see a wide variety of patients from all leading clinics posting their own results and experiences - not just patients of clinics who are better at encouraging their patients to post. We have made progress on this but there is plenty of room for improvement. Ultimately it's voluntary posts and photos that are made without any inducements that I think provide the most valuable feedback to this community. I join the above members in encouraging all who have benefited from those who have shared to "pay it forward" to those will come after them.

Future HT Doc, Thanks for providing some clarification regarding how we prescreen and carefully choose leading physicians like Dr. Glenn Charles. He's been recommended on this community for almost a decade and has got overwhelmingly positive reviews consistently. I recommend that any potential patient considering any surgeon do a search in our forum going back several years to read what their actual patients have to say. Best wishes, Pat P.S. Runman - Unfortunately, still today as you point out, patient do need to be careful in who they choose - in South Florida and anywhere.

Zeek, Congratulations on your results and thanks for sharing. This community loves photos. So I invite you to share yours by creating a photo album on your member profile or posting them on this forum. We also still provide an easy way for patients to create their own websites at http://hairtransplantnetwork.com/blog You can then place a link in your posting signature to your patient website or photo album. Again, thanks for sharing. Pat

Tony, I see your high school photo that you had hair falling into your face too. The good news is you've kept far more hair on the top of your scalp and crown area well into your forties than I did. That means you can focus on dense packing your hairline to restore it. You'll be in great hands with Dr. Rahal. Best wishes for your new hairline. Pat

Jimmy, Thanks for sharing some great tips for healthy hair and for health in general. While hair loss, like our health in general, is largely controlled by our genes, we can still do the best with what we have.

We hope that you like the new Hair Restoration Social Network and forum. We've worked behind the scenes for almost a year now to assure that all photos, posts, member info and URLs from our original forum carry over. Bill has really worked hard dealing with the many tedious details needed to make this happen. In this new community, you'll find many new exciting social networking features and an enhanced forum. We encourage you to customize your own profile, share your hair loss story, create blogs, present your photos, and upload videos. You can also create and join groups and interact with other members via public chat and instant message those you add to your friends. We now really encourage you to report any issues or suggested enhancements by emailing them to Bill at help@hairtransplantnetwork.com We will do every thing we can to make this the most robust hair restoration social community on the planet. So please let us know how we can make it better for you. Onwards and Upwards into greater sharing and interaction - Pat Never Forget - It's what radiates from within, not from your skin, that really matters!

Have you noticed all those faceless robots popping up on our new Social Network? If you're one of them, consider personalizing your profile with a photo that represents you. So far my favorite profile photo is Panama Jimmy's. Those very erect hairs look like they are amped up on steroids and minoxidil 105% solution. Sure beats looking at rows and rows of faceless robots :-):eek:

We hope that you and other members of our hair restoration community like this new forum and the new Hair Restoration Social Network. We've worked behind the scenes for almost a year now to assure that all photos, posts, member info and URLs from our original forum carry over. Bill has really worked hard dealing with the many tedious details needed to make this happen. We now really encourage you to report any issues or suggested enhancements by posting them on this forum or emailing them to Bill at help@hairtransplantnetwork.com We will do every thing we can to make this the most robust hair restoration social community on the planet. So please let us know how we can make it better for you. Onwards and Upwards into greater sharing and interaction - Pat