FUE 3070 grafts Dr Koray Erdogan July 26 2018

[maltesefalcon]

4 hours ago, jonnyalex said:

This forum has always been open about how it operates though. They have never lied. Unfortunately, yes, this will always lead to questions. 

Either way, I sincerely hope that they have reached out to both Dr. Erdogan and Dr. Bhatti about the recent results. Erdogan in particular went from world class results to some absolutely shockers recently. Something has drastically changed in that clinic and I can only assume it relates to his lack of involvement in the procedure. Unfortunately this forum did lead me to believe he was the best in Turkey which was not the case at all.  

There's nothing wrong with profiting from a forum. 

I think everyone here can appreciate the value that advertising can bring. But on a moral level, surgeons should only be advertised as recommended if the results are to a sufficiently high standard - otherwise that advertising should be swiftly withdrawn and another surgeon recommended.

In this way, the forum can evolve with the best surgeons whilst also generating a profit. 

It doesn't need to be one or the other. Both can be achieved if a conscious choice is made to go down that path. 

[BigBen]

4 hours ago, jonnyalex said:

This forum has always been open about how it operates though. They have never lied. Unfortunately, yes, this will always lead to questions. 

Either way, I sincerely hope that they have reached out to both Dr. Erdogan and Dr. Bhatti about the recent results. Erdogan in particular went from world class results to some absolutely shockers recently. Something has drastically changed in that clinic and I can only assume it relates to his lack of involvement in the procedure. Unfortunately this forum did lead me to believe he was the best in Turkey which was not the case at all.  

I chose Koray Erdogan because this forum also made me believe that he was the best in Turkey and one of the best in Europe but his lack of involvement in the process and the four full surgeries taking place at the same time I did not know until I was there and this is the big problem with Asmed in recent times and the proof is the subpar results. My result also lacks density  like @kw877 so I will count how many grafts have grown per square centimetre and contact the clinic. Like somebody said on the last page, it's not just a lot of money but it affects our mood in a very deep and negative way.

 

 

[FarsanUk]

15 minutes ago, BigBen said:

I chose Koray Erdogan because this forum also made me believe that he was the best in Turkey and one of the best in Europe but his lack of involvement in the process and the four full surgeries taking place at the same time I did not know until I was there and this is the big problem with Asmed in recent times and the proof is the subpar results. My result also lacks density  like @kw877 so I will count how many grafts have grown per square centimetre and contact the clinic. Like somebody said on the last page, it's not just a lot of money but it affects our mood in a very deep and negative way.

 

 

It's actually 6 patients a day with the potential or more. Refer to my next post below where dr Erdogan him self sends an email to melvin whom in tern posts it for us to see. He is clearly deluded.

[FarsanUk]

 

The link to the actual post is here: scroll to page 24.

 

Dr. Erdogan's Response:

"In response to your e-mail, I have complied the following details regarding our philosophy and procedures at Asmed in light of our mutual respect and collaboration over the years. Please feel free to share any part of this letter or all of it as you deem appropriate without altering its sense. 

 

As the Medical Director of the Asmed Surgical Medical Center, I am proud to announce the opening of our new clinic in Istanbul, Turkey and am pleased to be able to offer our patients the latest in state-of-the art equipment, facilities and patient services along with an enhanced team of surgeons that are trained in hair restoration surgery as well as the complementary fields of dermatology and surgical anatomy. Our new hair restoration surgeons are professor Alp Bayramoglu, M.D., Phd and Mehmet Goker, M.D. 

 

As the largest hair restoration clinic in the world, our aim has always been to render the maximum in quality, comfort and results to our patients when determining operational procedure and policy-making. In all fields of medicine, there is always a choice to be made that renders the outcome of the procedure or treatment the most positive for the patient, and this is the choice that the physician follows.  It is also the reason that we have decided to enrich the patient outcome and experience with additional expert surgeons and a new facility with advanced precision equipment that gives us with all the tools needed to provide the patient with a positive experience.

 

As Medical Director of the Asmed Surgical Medical Center and operating within the laws and procedural policies outlined by the Turkish Health Ministry for the role of surgical assistants in surgical procedures, I have determined that the team approach is best suited to the field of hair restoration.

 

At Asmed we select specific surgical teams for each patient based on the technical difficulty of the procedure and on the patient’s individual characteristics, thus customizing the surgical experience for each patient with an ideal match. Each surgical team is composed of one of the three expert surgeons on staff, an anesthesiologist and five licensed surgical assistants who have a minimum of 5 years of experience in the hair restoration field for those performing extractions and a minimum of 3 years for those performing placements. Additionally, all surgical assistants are required to perform 10,000 extractions and placements on the KE-Head, a life-like model prior to performing either on a live patient where they begun with 50 grafts and gradually increase according to their performance.

 

Even before surgery begins, the surgeon’s role is extensive and includes the evaluation of the patient’s donor area to establish the miniaturization ratio and DUPA, density, calculated density, the caliber of the hair and donor capacity.  Subsequently, the surgeon determines the number of grafts per square centimeter required for the procedure followed by a graft distribution plan and other recipient area calculations. Finally, Coverage Value calculations are made to ensure the precision of the surgical plan and proper homogenization. The surgeon’s calculations are verified both manually and through the use of the KE-BOT, a robot that scans the entire scalp’s surface in detail for the accuracy of the data.  The surgeon finally establishes the frontline design in conjunction with the patient’s goals and desires.

 

Once surgery has commenced, properly trained and licensed surgical assistants begin extractions according to the surgeon’s extraction plan. The surgical assistants, with the support of a stereoscopic microscope, are also responsible for the quality control of the grafts, the selection of single hair grafts for the frontline and temples and graft cleaning. Additionally, they are responsible for controlling the hair per graft average and documenting the speed of the extractions, both with the use of the Graft Calculator application.

 

In the successive phase of surgery, one of the surgeons performs incisions before placing begins by the surgical assistants who are entrusted with executing the surgeons placing plan, regulating the proper graft depth control and determining the K.E.E.P. (Koray Erdogan Embedding Placer) caliber and type (left or right). Typically, I perform incisions for a maximum of 6 surgeries per day as I have always done, while the other staff surgeons perform incisions for additional surgeries on mostly Turkish patients. 

 

The surgeon oversees the team throughout the procedure and makes adjustments to the surgical plan if required. Post-operatively, the team surgeon is responsible for all monitoring.

 

Hair restoration procedures are long and tedious, and as a result, concentration and accuracy can be affected by fatigue and strain. It is for this reason that I consider a well-selected surgical team to be the perfect model for hair restoration surgical procedures. The results are self-evident both for the patient and for the team. Delegated responsibilities provide optimum surgical outcomes for the patient and relaxed attentive team members whose precision is top notch. I have been using this model without alteration since 2003 and the results have been documented. 

 

The new clinic has not changed us, it has just changed what we can offer the patient...positive results with the utmost care, comfort, precision and artistry.

 

All my best wishes for a successful New Year!

 

Koray Erdogan, MD

[maltesefalcon]

That email is itself a sales ploy.

It doesn't address any of the concerns raised here. It's an iteration of what currently exists - dressed up in propagandistic garb.

For example - use of "surgical assistant", when in fact he means "technicians" - but it doesn't sound as good to say the procedure was carried out by technicians and occasionally overlooked by a surgeon here and there. 

[Fozzie]

My own opinion is I think people are not doing enough of their own due diligence when looking for a surgeon. I find it genuinely staggering when I read of cases where patients have turned up to ASMED and only then realise they won't be the only patient on the day and that techs will be performing the majority of the procedure. Just points to a serious lack of research imo. One might go in assuming it''s a surgery so a Dr will be carrying it out but with adequate research, it's clear the lines are blurred in the HT industry, even more so when you go abroad. 

ASMED were producing more consistent results up until a few years back but in the last year or two there have been too many patients who have been justifiably unhappy. What I will say in defence of this site is that it gives patients the opportunity to voice their dissatisfaction. I may be wrong, but I don't see many negative comments being removed/heavily moderated unlike other forums. Now if a prospective patient comes here and see's the unhappy ASMED patients, that is much more valuable to that person than some recommended list.

Personally, don't think anyone should be putting too much importance to the various lists out there, whether it's recommended surgeons on this site, the IAHRS, ISHRS or the various online 'HT consultants' pushing the surgeons they represent and seeing them as some kind of holy grail. They are just references and pointers imo and no one should be attaching too much weight to them.

End of the day, prospective patients owe it to themselves to perform very thorough research. Overall this industry, like for a lot of other cosmetic procedures, is pretty poorly regulated even in a lot of western countries. These various lists we see are all pretty much subjective and/or there's a vested interest somewhere imo. Not like these surgeons/clinics have to go through an official body and reach particular benchmarks and regularly attested so imo treat them with a giant handful of salt. It's just plain naive to think otherwise imo. End of the day, the onus is on the patient to ensure they fully understand what they are getting into. 

[BigBen]

When he says that they comply with policies outlined by the Turkish Health Ministry, of course they do, who knows if to a minimum level and let's get real, Turkey is not the best example of regulations of any kind and it's not part of the European Union, that's why no one would go to a clinic in Turkey unless recommended so that paragraph means nothing to me.

He can say that they use expensive technology and nobody questions that (expensive technology pays off) and the clinic is very clean. I do doubt the qualification and experience of the technicians because they didn't want to tell their names though and because there are a lot and some of them are recent workers.

He always says that he needs assistants and that he can't do everything on his own but he is no the only doctor in the world with this problem, they normally solve it by reducing the number of surgeries so they can focus on one and have all the assistants around. If you have four to six surgeries per day and he is only 10 minutes for the incisions as it was my case then he is not really taking responsibility and supervising each process. I have heard of people that had the incisions done by another person and that they didn't see the doctor at all except for the 5 minutes the day before that he takes to check your hair, hair calibre and draw the new hairline. The only logical reason to have 4 to 6 full surgeries per day is to make 4 to 6 times more money. Why I wonder when you are rich already and your reputation is being questioned.

Words can be as pretty as you want them to be but the only thing that matters is facts and results. A serious doctor addresses the problems directly without resorting to marketing-like talk.

[maltesefalcon]

3 minutes ago, BigBen said:

 

Words can be as pretty as you want them to be but the only thing that matters is facts and results. A serious doctor addresses the problems directly without resorting to marketing-like talk.

 

Exactly. 

And if you think about it, a patient needing 3,000 grafts earns the clinic 7,500 euros and, if six are performed, that's a whopping 45,000 euros per day.

You can see why he's pushing ahead with the same strategy. 

[BigBen]

@Fozzie I had no idea that there were 4 to 6 surgeries per day (4 my day) and I had made my research. I think that we should never question patients about what a clinic does, not even indirectly. As you said, information about HTs is blurry with good and bad results and so many doctors but Koray Erdogan was considered one of the best in the world when I checked the forums to choose mine. You can only blame a patient who chose an unknown doctor, a cheap doctor or a doctor with bad reputation.

Even if one year ago some people that were researching for their HT knew that there are 4 to 6 surgeries per day in Asmed that's not the information that affects a patient directly but the consequences of that decision such as unknown technicians doing the majority of the work. The problem is not exactly the number of surgeries but the consequences. Only after I had my HT done, more subpar cases appeared that were a year old because you can't judge any result until after one year has passed. Besides, the clinic representative I had talked to never told me about more than one surgery at the same time and I never asked because I would have never suspected that. However, as mentioned before, the problem is how that kind of business decisions affects real patients.

Edited July 23, 2019 by BigBen

[kw877]

6 hours ago, Jamothee said:

Sorry to hear mate, definitely a sub par result. That hairline looks quite pluggy too. Asmed is a a massive no go as far as I'm concerned. 

Wouldn't expect much from Asmed or the moderators on this forum either a it now appears that they are in cahoots and this is basically a marketing tool for the recommended surgeons. 

Yeah I agree. All one has to do is look at my thread to see how many others are dissatisfied. Pluggy, thin, huge gaps. But they’ll say it’s definitely improved, that it’s not bad and could be great with a small touch up lol. How about a transplant that doesn’t need 4000+ grafts for just a small hairline case? Cash grabbing mill, nothing more nothing less.

If a doctor wants the absolute best result for a patient, they will supervise the entire procedure beginning to end. If they wanna pop their head in for a few between 6 surgeries in a day, is anyone really going to argue that this is in the interest of the patient? If so how? 

Its not about the best results anymore. It’s not about quality, it’s about volume. Relying on their old work and peoples obliviousness. It’s so messed up. 

Edited July 23, 2019 by kw877

[Jamothee]

11 hours ago, maltesefalcon said:

That email is itself a sales ploy.

It doesn't address any of the concerns raised here. It's an iteration of what currently exists - dressed up in propagandistic garb.

For example - use of "surgical assistant", when in fact he means "technicians" - but it doesn't sound as good to say the procedure was carried out by technicians and occasionally overlooked by a surgeon here and there. 

This. 

Rather than address the failures that are clear for all to see, we get a blown out, fluffy sales pitch filled with impressive technical sounding words and names. It's actually quite insulting to those who have had terrible results. 

[FarsanUk]

So guys a while back asmed posted something on their Instagram story video which they later removed as I screen shot it and posted on here on another thread. Just to prove the potential of many surgeries they have check out that screen shot below. You can see it shows 9 surgery rooms and 7 of them are occupied at that point in time. They are all separate rooms if you zoom it says room 1 2 3 etc... 

 

[kw877]

8 hours ago, FarsanUk said:

So guys a while back asmed posted something on their Instagram story video which they later removed as I screen shot it and posted on here on another thread. Just to prove the potential of many surgeries they have check out that screen shot below. You can see it shows 9 surgery rooms and 7 of them are occupied at that point in time. They are all separate rooms if you zoom it says room 1 2 3 etc... 

 

Like this blows my mind...I don’t care what ANYONE says, how is this not a shameless money grab at this point? Is anyone really gonna defend 7-9 patients per day? Sorry, this is inexcusable.

[Kraistoff]

I find it difficult to understand how they can maintain quality . How can you review each graft on a screen like that 

[kw877]

5 minutes ago, Kraistoff said:

I find it difficult to understand how they can maintain quality . How can you review each graft on a screen like that 

Yeah like you need a magnifier to extract and implant, so how could you possibly see it through a monitor lol remember when the standard was 1-2 mid sized surgeries per day? How can anyone defend 7-9? I’d find it funny if I wasn’t walking around with a botched ht lol

[jonnyalex]

9 hours ago, FarsanUk said:

So guys a while back asmed posted something on their Instagram story video which they later removed as I screen shot it and posted on here on another thread. Just to prove the potential of many surgeries they have check out that screen shot below. You can see it shows 9 surgery rooms and 7 of them are occupied at that point in time. They are all separate rooms if you zoom it says room 1 2 3 etc... 

 

this is tragic....

[Kraistoff]

For such a set up to work we would need the following :

 

stop and hold points - at what intervals does the Doctor enter the surgery room to check on the works being carried out ? 

What does he check when he comes in? 

What do they do on the event of poor quality being found during surgery ? 

are there hold points more frequently for new technicians or is it the same for all? 

Is it another surgeon or senior technician doing these checks ?

if it’s another surgeon / technician are they IAHRS accredited or approved by this site ? 

 

Can we ask the clinic for a detailed description of their QA procedure . Perhaps the site should already have this if they are approved . Has the. QA procedure changed or been updated since they took on more patients ? 

[Jamothee]

40 minutes ago, Kraistoff said:

For such a set up to work we would need the following :

 

stop and hold points - at what intervals does the Doctor enter the surgery room to check on the works being carried out ? 

What does he check when he comes in? 

What do they do on the event of poor quality being found during surgery ? 

are there hold points more frequently for new technicians or is it the same for all? 

Is it another surgeon or senior technician doing these checks ?

if it’s another surgeon / technician are they IAHRS accredited or approved by this site ? 

 

Can we ask the clinic for a detailed description of their QA procedure . Perhaps the site should already have this if they are approved . Has the. QA procedure changed or been updated since they took on more patients ? 

Haha agreed!  As a site engineer in my previous life I can see your construction chops showing there mate. 

 

[Melvin- Admin]

Guys send me these questions. I’ve reached out to Dr. Erdogan, he’s willing to answer these questions in video format. So please send these to me and I will relay them.

[Kraistoff]

24 minutes ago, Melvin-Moderator said:

Guys send me these questions. I’ve reached out to Dr. Erdogan, he’s willing to answer these questions in video format. So please send these to me and I will relay them.

Thansk for response Melvin, I’m sure it will help future hair transplant candidates but it won’t help me as I’ve already had my surgery and so had the OP 

 

to to be honest I wish I would have seen these questions before I had my surgery. I am (and so is he OP) very lucky it isn’t a complete £&@? Up. 

 

We all read read and do our research about how a hair transplant needs to be finely tuned and decided upon. 

 

If we ask you via PM, we won’t be alerting future candidates to our worries. It is all these hidden facts that sway the whole thing 

 

I am positive the first day surgery grafts have grown a lot better than the second day surgery - why I am unsure but perhaps a different tech? Same with others , hairline is denser than the behind. 

Edited July 25, 2019 by Kraistoff

[Melvin- Admin]

3 minutes ago, Kraistoff said:

Thansk for response Melvin, I’m sure it will help future hair transplant candidates but it won’t help me as I’ve already had my surgery and so had the OP 

Last I saw your results looked good you’re not happy? 

[Kraistoff]

1 minute ago, Melvin-Moderator said:

Last I saw your results looked good you’re not happy? 

I’m not devastated , but kind of unhappy with the lack of communication by the surgeon. I’m not really happy not being contacted by him directly only by a young member of staff who by default says “give it time”

the area behind the hairline is really thin. 

[Melvin- Admin]

3 minutes ago, Kraistoff said:

I’m not devastated , but kind of unhappy with the lack of communication by the surgeon. I’m not really happy not being contacted by him directly only by a young member of staff who by default says “give it time”

the area behind the hairline is really thin. 

Well this is certainly something I’ll bring up to him. That said, I think your results look good. Now this is no excuse for anyone else, and I’m not making excuses for others. Just from one patient to another, I think yours looks good. Please share detailed photos of the areas you’re not satisfied with in your thread. Maybe I’ll have a better idea.

[kw877]

I just wish I could get some kind of refund, even partial. It’s not really feasible for me to go back for a touch up any time soon, I live California and don’t have the vacation time available. I’ve lost faith in the clinic also after seeing everyone with results like mine after 3-4K grafts for hairlines, which is baffling. Someone else mentioned it making more sense to refund than touch up since their time is obviously valuable and they could use it to slot another patient in and just give me some money back.

its a long shot I guess, but I’m really very unhappy with my result. The last pics I uploaded were at night in my bathroom, daytime is 10x worse as you can imagine. My hairs so long but I can’t have it any other way, literally have a comb over at 32...

[FarsanUk]

3 hours ago, Melvin-Moderator said:

Guys send me these questions. I’ve reached out to Dr. Erdogan, he’s willing to answer these questions in video format. So please send these to me and I will relay them.

You know as well as I do itll be like a politician answering it. What's he gonna say? Yeh the results are sh!t my techs are sh!t and i need to reduce the amount of surgeries and have a bigger role. Come on mate. We dont want an explanation from dr koray. We simply want him taken off the recommendation on this site. He consistently produces sub par results, no explanation is going to help repair these patients all he will say is come back for a touch up he is a disgrace and I hope he is reading this . He is ruining peoples'mental health and the owners of the forum who have him recommended also take that responsibility.

Edited July 25, 2019 by FarsanUk