Realistic expectations for female patients

[Dr. William Lindsey]

I just finished seeing a delightful 62 year old lady who has hairloss. She has some other medical issues that may be contributing to her problem and may be correctable, but she and I had a nice discussion about my philosphy on female hair transplantation.

 

We discussed that my Hair practice is 98% male patients and that in general, if I take a man and frame his face with a nice tightly packed hair procedure, or correct a vertex bald spot, I can usually make him extremely happy. Even men with very little hair, can often achieve superb results by framing the face with what is left in the donor region.

 

However, women with even mildly thinning hair often are driven to come in just by the magazines they pass by on the way out of the grocery store. They may expect and demand the thickness of hair displayed on the front of Cosmo or People magazine, and to give them anything less may make them terribly unhappy.

 

In my experience, I can only be confident that women will be REALLY happy with a hair transplant if:

 

1. They have a very focussed defect, often from an overzealous facelift removing the temporal sideburn tufts, or from a burn etc.

 

OR

 

2. They particularly notice their hairloss along their hair "part".

 

For both of these groups, we offer a dense packed true follicular unit transplant and find that these ladies are consistently satisfied--after 1 year.

 

I see a fair number of women who have had 1-2000 grafts placed in diffuse male pattern baldness by other groups nearby, and these ladies are not happy. Even if I can explain to them that much of the hair that they currently have is from their transplant(done at another doctor's office) they still are upset that they don't have the hair they had in their youth.

 

So for this women, I asked her to get a thorough medical workup for correctable causes of her hairloss. I told her that I couldn't help her now(contrary to what she says she heard from a consultant at a practice nearby) but to keep me in mind and if her part became significantly thinner, I would be happy to see her back and discuss options.

 

I would much rather her be an informed and realistic consumer who felt she got treated fairly, than for me just to take her cash and to give her a less satisfactory result than she deserved.

 

I guess it worked, as she called her 35 year old son while here and made him an appointment.

 

Dr. Lindsey www.lindseymedical.com

[Dr. William Lindsey]

I just finished seeing a delightful 62 year old lady who has hairloss. She has some other medical issues that may be contributing to her problem and may be correctable, but she and I had a nice discussion about my philosphy on female hair transplantation.

 

We discussed that my Hair practice is 98% male patients and that in general, if I take a man and frame his face with a nice tightly packed hair procedure, or correct a vertex bald spot, I can usually make him extremely happy. Even men with very little hair, can often achieve superb results by framing the face with what is left in the donor region.

 

However, women with even mildly thinning hair often are driven to come in just by the magazines they pass by on the way out of the grocery store. They may expect and demand the thickness of hair displayed on the front of Cosmo or People magazine, and to give them anything less may make them terribly unhappy.

 

In my experience, I can only be confident that women will be REALLY happy with a hair transplant if:

 

1. They have a very focussed defect, often from an overzealous facelift removing the temporal sideburn tufts, or from a burn etc.

 

OR

 

2. They particularly notice their hairloss along their hair "part".

 

For both of these groups, we offer a dense packed true follicular unit transplant and find that these ladies are consistently satisfied--after 1 year.

 

I see a fair number of women who have had 1-2000 grafts placed in diffuse male pattern baldness by other groups nearby, and these ladies are not happy. Even if I can explain to them that much of the hair that they currently have is from their transplant(done at another doctor's office) they still are upset that they don't have the hair they had in their youth.

 

So for this women, I asked her to get a thorough medical workup for correctable causes of her hairloss. I told her that I couldn't help her now(contrary to what she says she heard from a consultant at a practice nearby) but to keep me in mind and if her part became significantly thinner, I would be happy to see her back and discuss options.

 

I would much rather her be an informed and realistic consumer who felt she got treated fairly, than for me just to take her cash and to give her a less satisfactory result than she deserved.

 

I guess it worked, as she called her 35 year old son while here and made him an appointment.

 

Dr. Lindsey www.lindseymedical.com

[Bill - Seemiller]

Dr. Lindsey,

 

Good points.

 

I would think however, that every female patient is different just like every man is. Most men I'd imagine would WANT if possible to come out looking like one of the men in GQ magazine with a perfect head of hair but this is simply not realistic.

 

Simply put, a physician can only work with within the limits of finite donor hair and nobody losing their hair (especially those with extensive baldness) should expect to have "perfect" results. But cosmetic surgery is about improvement, not perfection. In my opinion, patient and physician should work together to come up with realistic expectations and go over all benefits and possible risks before proceeding.

 

Best wishes,

 

Bill

[Dr. William Lindsey]

You are right Bill,

 

Perfection is the enemy of good. Violation of that statement is often seen as the source of problems in cosmetic surgery, child rearing, and marriages.

 

Dr. Lindsey