Accountability is Vital For The Hair Transplant Industry

[Melvin- Admin]

There has been some very healthy discussion on the board, and recently I saw a video from a hair transplant surgeon where he really denigrated hair loss forums as a whole. This got me thinking just how dangerous it is to have an industry without checks and balances. To have no freedom of expression, a place where we can't share differing point of views and healthy debate. It all comes down to accountability. These forums keep surgeons accountable.

Now, i'm not going to pretend like every forum is ethical with integrity, but it is very easy to spot those forums right away, what makes this community great is that we all work together. I would love to hear your guys thoughts.

 

Accountability Is Vital For The Hair Transplant Industry

[Future Hair Doc]

I think a well moderated forum is vital to providing patients accurate information and to holding surgeons accountable. Surgeons benefit from positive publicity and patients benefit from truthful reviews. It all comes down to how the forum is set up and if the forum is well moderated. I think this forum does a good job in being fair to both patients and surgeons. 

[SySperling10]

This forum IMO is a litmus test. Just like amazon and yelp, you have to sort through the good and the bad reviews. At the end of the day, the only result that matters is the final one, your hair. I could care less if the doc is a dick or they don't have a pre-surgery liaison, everything you need can be found online.

Back a few years ago when I was more frequent on the forum, there was a prominent doc in NY, who was a complete ass about FUE. So, my point is the forum goes two ways. Based on what I observed, I would never go to that doc, even though he was geographically the closets, but way too biased.

[LaserCap]

We have to be careful and understand we are not doctors.  From time to time I read posts and cringe. The information given could mislead the reader, (it happens often with Propecia and what dose to take).  Fortunately there is a high degree of participation and, most of the time, we tend to agree on the approach.  We also have a good number of physicians sharing their opinion and balance out our input.  I feel we are on the right track but always think before you speak, (me included).

[Melvin- Admin]

It’s true, not every poster is right, but we have enough quality posters and veteran patients where the correct information is shared.

Finasteride has and will always be a hot-topic. Particularly, because those who suffer side effects are vociferous. Now, where I tend to steer clear is surgical protocol semantics. For example, is motorized FUE worse than manual. Truthfully, as laymans we shouldn’t be pre-occupied on protocol semantics. 

That said,  these questions have garnered surgeon participation, which is invaluable, so I guess there’s no dumb question. Especially, if we can find an expert answer.

[Melvin- Admin]

1 hour ago, SySperling10 said:

This forum IMO is a litmus test. Just like amazon and yelp, you have to sort through the good and the bad reviews. At the end of the day, the only result that matters is the final one, your hair. I could care less if the doc is a dick or they don't have a pre-surgery liaison, everything you need can be found online.

Back a few years ago when I was more frequent on the forum, there was a prominent doc in NY, who was a complete ass about FUE. So, my point is the forum goes two ways. Based on what I observed, I would never go to that doc, even though he was geographically the closets, but way too biased.

Astute observations, but see had you not gone on this forum, maybe you would have chosen that surgeon based off of location, many do. I do think we are a mixture of "google" and "yelp" because you can pretty much find any hair transplant answer here, as it has likely been asked before, and tons of reviews.

[SySperling10]

58 minutes ago, Melvin-Moderator said:

Astute observations, but see had you not gone on this forum, maybe you would have chosen that surgeon based off of location, many do. I do think we are a mixture of "google" and "yelp" because you can pretty much find any hair transplant answer here, as it has likely been asked before, and tons of reviews.

With that said, I never would have had a procedure or found doctor Vories without this forum.