Pat - Community Publisher

Hold your horses you upstarts. This old horse would like to enter my results into this top level contest. For hair direction in all directions, lift, density and audacity I think I've got what it takes to cinch this showdown. Sure I'm using some multi colored volumizing hair spray. But it's the END RESULT that matters, right? Not to be catty, but between choosing a terrorist and a Carrot Top want a be, I think the choice is clear. But I leave it to the good judgment of our forum members to make the RIGHT choice.

Recommending Physicians: A Collaborative Effort Physician Selection is Critical The most important decision a patient will make is their choice of physician. The skill, talent, and experience of hair transplant physicians and their staff varies widely, as do the life long results. It's critical that patients choose a physician who has a proven track record of providing truly state of the art results. This Community is Run by and for Patients This online community was created by and for hair transplant patients. For the publisher's hair restoration story, click here. All the physicians who are recommended on the Hair Transplant Network have been carefully screened by patients and must meet our community's high standards. To view all the physicians who are recommended on this community, click here. Our Collective Wisdom Determines the Recommendations This recommendation process is collaborative and involves input from the thousands of patients who have visited our community over the past 20+ years. Their actual experiences have helped determine which physicians are recommended or not. In addition to patient input, the publisher of this community, Patrick Hennessey, regularly visits leading clinics around the world to observe their surgeries, meet with their patients and evaluate the physician, staff and clinic. Prior to any physician being recommended information about the physician, including multiple examples of their surgical process and patient results, are presented on this forum community. Forum members and leading hair restoration physicians are invited to post their comments and critiques. Our goal is to enlist as much input as possible from multiple patients before making a determination about a physician. We strive to make this evaluation process as democratic and transparent as possible. We hope that you become an active member of this community and contribute your input to this collective process. To view an example of this review process on our forum click here. Those physicians who are chosen for recommendation based on their merits contribute a monthly sponsorship fee to pay for the cost of running this community. Meeting an Ultra High Standard - the Coalition of Independent Hair Restoration Physicians Those physicians whose clinics have developed the capacity to provide large sessions exceeding 2,500 follicular unit grafts and the skill to perform ultra refined high density sessions are eligible for membership in the Coalition of Independent Hair Restoration Physicians . To read about the ultra high standards for membership, click here. All Recommended Physicians Must Meet Our Standards Continually All recommended physicians are expected to continually meet our high standards on an ongoing basis. Patients are encouraged to share their experiences both good and bad. Those physicians who fail to provide consistent high quality results will have their recommendations discontinued. We hope that you benefit from the collective wisdom of this patient based community and contribute to it.

I visited Dr. Mohebi's clinic last week and I was very impressed by the work I saw him and his very experienced staff doing. I invited him to share his work on our forum and I'm glad to see that he has begun to do this. Although I agree that more details would be useful, including the total number of hairs. I will soon be sharing what I observed and learned while watching he and his staff perform surgery last week. But in general I was very encouraged by what I saw. Dr. Mohebi did a one year fellowship with Dr. Rassman at NHI in LA and I understand did a large number of surgeries during that time. He recently opened his own clinic but does not have or can't use the photos from his surgeries while at NHI. I expect to see him posting many impressive results over the coming months that will confirm the high quality work I saw when observing his surgery last week. I should have the highlights from this visit posted soon at the "Visits to Leading Hair Transplant Clinics" forum at http://www.hairrestorationnetwork.com/eve/forumdisplay.php?f=101

Hairnutter123, I can certainly understand your anxiety about you hair loss and doing another transplant. You were apparently oversold by a "doctor" on results that proved to be underwhelming. Then your "friend" calls you Elton John and then explains his poor "joke" to the crowd. Frankly, you would only be an "idiot" if you weren't concerned. But since you have been on this forum you must know that real people are achieving real life improving results from doctors who actually deliver. The UK has had a very sorry history of lousy hair transplant results - even worse than in North America. But in recent times, two clinics in particular in the UK, have been demonstrating that they get it. They have gotten on track with their leading North American collegues and left their UK colleauges to playing the "corn row shuffle". These two clinics in my opinion are the Farjos (the husband and wife team of Bessam and Nilofer) and Dr. Rogers. Given the lousy history of hair transplants in the UK, it has become virtual gospel that you have to leave the UK to get a state of the art hair transplant. Last Spring I flew to the UK to find out the truth for myself. I came away genuinely impressed by the state of the art work I saw the Farjos doing. I also thought that Dr. Rogers was on track and with a few enhancements could be world class. To view the highlights from my visit to the UK and Europe, click here . While the Farjos were certainly not performing hair transplant surgery at the ultra refined level in the past. They are now. And I think that's what should matter most to those in the UK today.

Congratulations on both of your surgeries. Now as they say comes the hard part - waiting, waiting and waiting even more for the hair you paid for. During the first few weeks, many patients start to get unduly hopeful that they are going to be one of the small minority of patients who's transplanted hair continues to grow. Then their hopes are dashed as the hair sheds. Then comes the long journey across time as you wander through the bald wilderness desert praying and hoping for the hair sprouts that never seem to come. Some begin to loose faith and curse God, or even their physician. Some fantasize about going postal, while others simply post. Then after about 3 to 6 months when they are convinced that they have made a foolish choice with nothing to show for it - a few tiny little sprouts emerge from the bald desert. Then hope slowly emerges like spring as the sprouts grow and are joined by other sprouts. Spring fever takes over and those who have watched themselves thinning over the years are delighted to see that they are now "thickening" instead of "thinning". Some get euphoric and hug their physicians and thank God or say that their physician is God since he can perform miracles. Others share the good news on this forum, while some get on with their new life. My advice - forget you had a hair transplant and then be pleasantly surprised when you start seeing hair sprouting from your head like a chia pet. Best wishes for a bumper crop. Pat

Crown Royal, Let me be the first to congratulate you on making a well thought out choice and for sharing it. I see from your pre op photo on your blog that the dermatch was probably not enhancing your crown area enough to disguise your hair loss. No doubt an extra 3000 grafts will make a real difference. You may even be able to retire the dermatch entirely. I'm glad to hear you are on Propecia to stabilize your hair loss. We will all look forward to following your progress during and after your surgery. Welcome in advance to the Real "Hair Club". Pat

On March 27th a poster, jesdog112781, who first registered on this forum in 2006, posted on this topic alleging that he was unhappy with his surgical results with Dr. DeYarman. I then emailed him in an attempt to help him. I did not get a reply. More recently Dr. DeYarman posted a new topic " 100% TOTAL LIES" alleging that the person posting was not a patient of his. I again emailed the poster jesdog112781 in an attempt verify his claims. Again, I got no response. In the interest of fairness, I think those reading this topic should know that this poster's claims could not be verified, despite multiple attempts to contact him.

napoleon.76, Dr. DeVroye in Belgium is an excellent example of a physician who's clinic does superb work that is rarely featured on the forums. I encourage you to view the highlights from my visit to his clinic . You will be in excellent hands with him.

Recently there was a topic, " NYC doc ??“ Feller or Dorin? ", that started with a patient asking for suggestions for quality physicians in New York. When two clinics offering hair transplant services in the New York area posted on this topic, a heated debate emerged about the role physicians and their staff should play in responding to such "who's best" topics. Should clinics make a case for themselves by jumping into these topics or should such topics be discussed by only hair loss sufferers? And in general, should physicians themselves be posting patient results on the forum or should such patient results be posted only by the patients themselves? For years I have been encouraging all leading physicians to get actively involved with this forum community by providing expert replies to patient questions and by sharing examples of their work. Unfortunately, most physicians do not have the time or inclination to participate on the forums. So despite being invited to the banquette only a few show up. The few top clinics who show up then enjoy the benefits of enhanced positive visibility and generally end up being on most patients short list, while the other are out of sight and out of mind. While Hasson and Wong, the Shapiro Medical Group and Dr. Feller all do outstanding work they also all have staff members who regularly share their work. Is it any wonder that they end up on many peoples top five short list? Some physicians like Dr. Epstein believe that patient photo albums should predominantly come from their patients voluntarily posting them. However, Dr. Epstein has provided a wealthy of impressive photos on his Coalition profile and on his website. So his results are not hard to find. I can sympathize with this philosophy. However, those physicians who rely only on their patients to post photo albums will be at a competitive disadvantage on this and other forums when compared to the clinics that actively post their patient results. In short, it's hard for patients to make fair comparisons when many outstanding clinics do not actively make a showing on the forum. So while the playing field may be level, too many of the players are not on the field. This situation has concerned me for a long time. I have been considering offering a lower membership fee for clinics who actively participate on this forum. Thus those who show up will not only reap the accolades and patients but deep discounts. I have found that far too many doctors will not embrace a million dollar idea, but they will scramble for even a small discount. Sorry docs, but I'm not the first to notice that you're much better at helping patients than being business people. Any ideas on how to get more physicians actively involved in a positive way on this forum are welcome. Onwards and Upwards, Pat

Byehair, You're right. She did work with Dr. Rassman for about a half year. My understanding is that she chose to set up her own practice in the Bay Area rather than continue as a New Hair Institute surgeon in the Bay Area. Pat

Recently I visited hair transplant clinics in the San Francisco Bay Area to observe their hair restoration surgeries, view their patient results and learn more about their philosophy, techniques and staff. I focused on those clinics that I felt had the most promise of providing optimal state of the art hair transplant results. Based on my research and patient input over the years, I chose to visit Dr. Sheldon Kabaker in Oakland, Dr. Tom Rosanelli in San Francisco and Dr. Sara Wasserbauer in Walnut Creek. Dr. Kabaker has extensive experience in both facial plastic surgery and hair transplantation and has been recommended on the Hair Transplant Network for several years ( view his profile ). In addition to performing quality follicular unit grafting, he is unique in offering a hairline lowering procedure for women. Dr. Kabaker has performed over 200 of these hairline lowering procedures and is perhaps the foremost expert on this unique technique. To learn more about his hairline lowering procedure and the follicular unit grafting procedure I saw him perform during my visit, click here . Dr. Tom Rosanelli has been performing hair transplantation exclusively for almost twenty years. He now performs follicular unit hair transplantation with a large and experienced staff who trim all grafts carefully under microscopes. To learn more about his clinic and view surgical highlights from my visit, click here . Dr. Sara Wasserbauer is relatively new to hair transplantation. She did a one year fellowship with Matt Leavitt of Medical Hair Restoration (MHR) during 2004 to 2005. She has had her own private clinic in Walnut Creek for the past year and a half. Despite an encouraging visit to her clinic, during which she demonstrated the use of state of the art techniques, she has chosen to withdraw from the process of being evaluated by this forum community for possible recommendation.

Hairbank, Congratulations! You have given so much help to the members of this community over the years and you deserved the first class treatment you got. Now, just to make sure you're not making it up, where are those photos? Best wishes for a bumper crop. Pat

ChargerFan, I'm sorry to hear of your poor experience with Dr. Kahn. Unfortunately, I'm not surprised as she has gotten many bad reviews on this forum over the years. Several years ago, before much was known about her online, I did visit her clinic when it was in San Diego. I was appalled to see that even in their expensive four color brochure the patient photos looked poor. I pretty much fled her office and I've never reconsidered them, as they appear to still be doing poor work. Hopefully your post will save others from the same experience. In terms of moving forward, I know that Dr. Konior is an excellent choice. He has done plenty of repair work and should be able to make really improve your hairline. Please keep up posted. Pat

Over the years forum members have been making top doctor lists. It's natural that potential patients should do this because ultimately we have to make and narrow our own list down to one clinic. Frankly, these days, as more and more physicians have evolved their techniques, there are many excellent choices - many of whom are not popular or widely discussed on the forums. For example, I have visited Dr. Griffin's clinic in Atlanta twice to observe his surgery ( click here to view the highlights). When I first visited him almost five years ago he was way ahead of his time and already doing Ultra Refined Follicular Unit Grafting before this community even had a name for the technique. I found his technique, dedication and staff to be superb. Given his excellent credentials, patient track record, technique and staff he is an elite member of the Coalition. Yet he is rarely discussed on the forums. This is true for many of the clinics who I have visited and who I believe are just as good or even better than some of those who are well known and popular on the forums. This situation reminds me of the saying "If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it did it make a sound?" I believe it did make a sound even if it was not heard - on or offline. I simply want to remind forum members to look beyond a doctor's online visibility and popularity and evaluate their intrinsic merits. I think the handful of clinics that are most popular on this and other forums are really only the tip of the iceberg. Over the past ten years I have seen the popularity of doctors come and go on the forums. Physicians who are all the rage today, may not even have been discussed a few years ago. The essential ingredient in these clinics becoming respected and popular online is great technique and results and getting these results seen on the forums. Unfortunately, many of the Coalition clinics have great technique and results, but never make the effort to share their results online. I constantly nag and pester them to share their work on our forum. But only a minority of these physicians are comfortable or willing to do this. Bill, now spends time trying to get the doctors to post. I had to laugh when he was puzzled by how hard it was to get doctors to simply put their results online. Doctors have long had the reputation of being bad business men. To this I would add bad posters. For my long list of top docs see the Hair Transplant Network :-) Best wishes for narrowing your choices down to a list of one. Pat

Tolosan, Dr. Jones was an early adopter of FUE in North America. But "father" is a real stretch. His patients had very mixed experiences with his FUE and his reputation became tainted. Given his mixed track record I do not have the confidence at this time to recommend him. Best wishes, Pat

I really wish I could provide our members in Toronto with a solid recommendation. But unfortunately, at this time we do not have compelling enough evidence to recommend any of the physicians in Toronto. We are working with a couple of Toronto clinics to gather and review their before and after photos and potentially present them on this forum for consideration. I'll keep you posted on the forum. Best wishes, Pat P.S. Dr. Rahal in Ottawa is an outstanding recommendation and he is also a member of the Coalition.

Dr. DeYarman sure knows how to win the patient community over. Apparently harassing me with a lawsuit for not removing critical posts is not enough. Now he sends private emails to those who can clearly see when the "Emperor has no clothes" and dare to point it out. Perhaps DeYarman should simply stay off the Internet and do his marketing using sandwich boards and TV ads - which don't talk back. Dr. DeYarman thinks the two sides to this story are his and his. Sorry you guys had to read his nonsense in your mail box. But obviously you have the sense of humor to laugh it off.

wylie, I can understand why SpineGuy would be a passionate supporter of Dr. Wong, especially given his past poor experiences. This poor work from the past certainly does produce a general hostility toward the "hair transplant industry". Given this, I wanted to leave the door open to his return if he were willing to mend the situation by apologizing to Dr. Wasserbauer. However, to date, I have not heard from him. He can certainly email me directly at pat@hairtransplantnetwork.com

Sara, It was a pleasure meeting you and your staff this week. I know you are a positive person who does not appreciate mean spirited attacks. Neither do I. I apologize for this person's mean spirited email. I accept your explanation as to this simple misunderstanding, which was posted on another forum topic . Frankly, I do not think the person who wrote this email to you belongs on this community. I have suspended his posting privileges (see my email to this poster below). The vast majority of the members of this patient based community are here to help others and are well meaning and intelligent individuals. I hope that you will not let this one person sour you on a community that you and your patients may garner much positive value from. To capitulate to one mean spirited email would be to make it very successful. While the tone of this person's email was wrong, all physicians will need to realize that patients will critique and comment on all work presented. If you are willing and able to handle constructive feedback, then I encourage you to get involved and share your patient results. I found my visit to your clinic this week encouraging and it would be a shame to let one mean spirited email derail your participation. Thanks again for opening your clinic up to me. Upwards and Onwards, Pat My email to spineguy1 -

I fully agree that it would be great to see more examples of physicians work on this forum. But trying to get them to do what's best for them and potential patients is like pushing the proverbial rope. Now that Bill has been trying to get the doctors to post he knows first hand how hard it is to help them. Frankly, it frustrates me that typically only a handful of physicians dominate the forums largely because they are better at posting their work than actually doing better work. It's only natural that patients would then develop the perception that only this handful of doctors are worth going to. Then patients do and return to post about this handful of doctors, thus further reinforcing the reputation of this visible clique. Visitors on the forums would have a much more realistic sense of doctors' work if they all posted the same amount of photos. I've mailed the doctors instructions for posting, had in person meeting to show them how to do, yet only some of them ever do it. I've been in doctors office and looking at their photos and seen jaw dropping results that they never get around to posting or even adding to their sites. It's truly pathetic. In my experience the truism that doctors are generally horrible businessmen is true. Doctors are a different breed and many still think that posting is shameless self promotion. Of course, it's a shame they think this. It's their loss and its a loss to potential patients who would benefit from their services if they had the confidence to go to them. I guess if more patients asked them to post photos on the forums that might actually help get them to take action. Onwards and Upwards, Pat

I'm going to be busy this week visiting several clinics in the San Fransisco Bay Area and observing their surgeries all day. I won't have the time to continually repeat what I've already stated on this and other topics. Those who believe in the value of this community and want to stay and contribute to the process of helping people find the best treatments and doctors are encouraged to do so. Those who choose to disregard our long standing track record of quality recommendations and openness, are free to leave. Either way, I know there will be plenty of genuine members on this forum who will help others. Nervous Nelly's calling for a boycott of this community hardly makes him "one of the most dedicated members" of this community. Those who miss him can find him whining away on any of the other forum communities that have no quality standards, clinic visits or patient input for determining the physicians who are presented.

Over the years I have been extremely reluctant to ban anyone and the removal of a forum member has been few and far between. For the first three years of this forum I never once banned a single member or removed a single post. I replied to every post that I felt was inaccurate, using my reply as my only antidote. As a rather naive journalism major with a fierce belief in the "freedom of the press" I was fiercely anti censorship. In time a few posters made a virtual hobby out of outright sabatauging the forum on a daily and even hourly basis. Eventually I was spending more than half of my day, every day, running from topic to topic refuting utter nonsense. These posters knew full well that they would never be banned. These weeds were choking the garden to death and those members who actually cared about helping others began to leave the forum due to the toxicity created by this small band of hard core weeds. I finally decided that if the forum was going to flourish I needed to be willing to pull out the weeds. On one day I banned a handful of these persistent weeds and the forum transformed for the better virtually over night and flourished. We insist that the doctors be held accountable on this forum. Yet forum members need to also be accountable. Some seem to have forgotten this and took their posting privileges as a right to post virtually anything - true or untrue. Some have come on to this and other forums to covertly market physicians for which they received compensation. I believe that both of these behaviors undermine the health and credibility of a forum. Recently two forum members began advocating a boycott of this forum. These two member's, Nervous Nelly and NoBuzz, had their posting privileges removed by me yesterday as stated previously in this topic. Chucky and Luck UK also had their posting privileges removed for a number of reasons, but primarily for smearing the Farjo clinic despite clear evidence that this clinic now provides outstanding and ultra refined hair transplantation. The quality of the Farjo's work was in question and so I flew to England last Spring and spent extensive time in surgery with both Drs. Bessam and Nilofer Farjo to inspect their work. I have no doubt after observing their surgery, patients and getting to know their staff that their current work is on pare with some of the top clinics in North America. I also visited Dr. Roger's clinic but declined to recommend them on the Hair Transplant Network since at that time they were not exclusively using the microscopes. To view the highlights from my visit, click here . Unfortunately, Chucky and Lucky are representative of a small group of people who seem completely resistant to the facts, including the positive posts made by Farjo patients. Instead they cling to an outdated and inaccurate perception like a racist who is unwilling to see beyond their own prejudice. Lucky in particular showed little interest in helping anyone on this forum and did little other than bad mouth and libel the Farjos. This is a forum for sharing genuine information and dealing in facts, not for spewing libelous and defaming "opinions". For this reason I chose to revoke the posting privileges of Chucky and Lucky UK. This forum will continue to host genuine posts that show the good, the bad and the ugly about any physician. But it is not a forum for defamation or for lobbying members in an effort to undermine this community. Just as I'm willing to reject any physician, no matter how agreeable they may be in person, I will also remove a member that undermines the mission of this community to help hair loss sufferers find the best treatments and physicians. I know that some of you may or may not have had personal connections with these posters. So to those who did I'm sorry for the disruption. I long ago gave up any illusions about being popular in running this community. Many hair transplant doctors dislike this patient based forum and me for running it. Some in the patient based community also dislike me for running this community. So be it. Those who find it of value will stick around and those who don't won't. Now that Billero is the full time "associate publisher" of this community he has found his own popularity wanning, despite the fact that he spent almost three years posting over 4,000 helpful messages with out one dime. His excellent character, giving nature and true belief in the work of this patient based community is why I hired him. He remains the 100% straight and honest guy I knew then, yet now I see him being unfairly maligned on other forums. Perhaps I can take solace that it is the nature of publishing this community more than personality that produces such criticisms. I hope that the members of this community realize that up until yesterday only three or four members have had their posting privileges removed in over a year. Given that dozens of new members register each week, I think that's a record of tolerance.

Jupiter, Although I didn't ask for it, I appreciate your apology. I'm pleased to hear that this community has helped you. Best wishes for stopping your hair loss. Pat

TomA, I do agree that when two parties go to court the only clear winners are the attorneys. I did call Dr. DeYarman many times in an attempt to resolve things without attorneys. However, he insisted that he be reinstated in the Coalition and that negative posts regarding he and his work be removed from this forum. I could not agree to his demands because doing so would have discredited the integrity of this forum and the membership standards set for the Coalition. At this point I'm very confident in the case that my attorney has prepared and expect that Dr. DeYarman's lawsuit will be dismissed for numerous reasons. I'd much rather pay for real justice than make a compromise that would compromise what this patient based community stands for.

Ultimately this forum is open to all genuine criticism of any and all doctors, recommended or not. Those who have been on this forum long term know this is true. However, I do encourage patients to first give their physician an opportunity to resolve their issues. This is spelled out on the Coalition Membership Standards page in the physician accountability section below: Regarding NotGoing2GoBald many of his off color comments were considered sexist and racist by some of our forum members. Every week or two Bill, as the moderator, had to send him a private message asking him to be less offensive. So there were many issues with NotGoing2GoBald that led to his posting privileges being removed. The removal of NotGoing2GoBald and those who foolishly advocated the boycotting of this forum community does not change our long standing policy of letting the chips fall were they may regardless of the physician. A person need only see the recent controversy mentioned in this topic and others about a respected Coalition doctor to see how painfully true this is. P.S. Since Recession feels it's getting to be like North Korea around here, could someone email me a photo of the short little North Korean dictator, Mr. Kim, with the outstanding hairline? I'd like to use it for my avatar. Now why is it that dictators seem to have the best hairlines? If I become a tyrant will my hairline thicken?