How do doctors determine how much time they need for surgery?

[HappyMan2021]

I saw Dr Mwamba for a pretty extensive repair surgery, over 3 days back in June. 

Unfortunately - whether there was too much of a scarring risk or simply a lack of time - Mwamba did not remove/replace all my bad grafts, and I have booked him for 2 days in January so he can take care of all the outstanding areas. 

I'd say there is 70% or less work for this 2nd round than everything that was done in my 1st repair. 

But, I'm pretty nervous I'm going to go through all this effort again, take time off work, flying to Belgium, just for Dr. Mwamba to run out of time or something and necessitate the need for a 3rd surgery. 

My question is - when booking surgeries, how do surgeons determine if a patient needs, 1, 2, or 3 days of surgery, etc?

Edited October 13, 2022 by HappyMan2021

[Gatsby]

It’s an excellent question @HappyMan2021 and I would imagine in most cases the number of grafts to be used (or removed) would have to be taken into account. Along with that would be preparation, pre and post chat, pics, etc. I would actually ask Dr Mwamba himself as I have no doubt that he would be more than approachable. Everything hair restoration related seems to require patience, time, money, etc. All the best. 

[Al - Moderator]

Drs know how many grafts they can do in a day. They've been doing it long enough to know. That makes it pretty easy in most cases to know how many days to schedule. If they know they can do roughly 2000 grafts in a day and they estimate they will be doing 3500 grafts on you then it's easy to see that will be 2 days. Repairs are a lot harder to determine ahead of time because it's not always clear to see what the extent of the repair will be such as how many grafts need to be relocated. Repairs usually take longer to do than standard hair transplants. There is more planning needed as well, so they may spend more time discussing with you various options and strategies on what to do on the morning of surgery, so it may be later in the morning that they actually get started than if it was a standard case.

 

[shiba1985]

for a regular surgery straight forwards. multiple your rate of extraction/ hours by the number of extractions, and the rate of placement per hour. Then add in couple hours for lunch and bathroom breaks

repair surgeries are a lot harder to predict as the extractions can go easily or be very difficult. On top of that even if you try your best you always leave something behind, and have to go back and remove it. sometimes its just not possible to remove it due to the location of another excision

10 hours ago, HappyMan2021 said:

I saw Dr Mwamba for a pretty extensive repair surgery, over 3 days back in June. 

Unfortunately - whether there was too much of a scarring risk or simply a lack of time - Mwamba did not remove/replace all my bad grafts, and I have booked him for 2 days in January so he can take care of all the outstanding areas. 

I'd say there is 70% or less work for this 2nd round than everything that was done in my 1st repair. 

But, I'm pretty nervous I'm going to go through all this effort again, take time off work, flying to Belgium, just for Dr. Mwamba to run out of time or something and necessitate the need for a 3rd surgery. 

My question is - when booking surgeries, how do surgeons determine if a patient needs, 1, 2, or 3 days of surgery, etc?

 

Maybe now you understand why Dr Cooley requested to see you in person, and Dr Konior recommended multiple sessions. 

[Rahal Hair Transplant]

@HappyMan2021,

For starters, most hair transplant procedures only take one day, although it often takes all day depending on the size of future. However, A physician will use certain criteria to determine how long it was usually take.  This includes the type of the procedure, the size of the procedure, whether or not it’s a repair procedure, The size of the physicians staff, how many grafts a surgeon and his or her staff can extract and transplant in a single day based on experience, A particular patient’s physiology and situation which comes from evaluating a patient during a consultation… This could change after the patient is evaluated in person, etc.  

At the end of the day, there is no exact science determine exactly how long a procedure will take. However, based on a surgeons experience and the size of their staff, the surgeon should be able to give you an idea of a price and how long it will take and whether or not they will need more than one day to meet your initial procedural goals.

Best wishes,

Rahal Hair Transplant

Edited October 13, 2022 by Rahal Hair Transplant