I'm a mod for Reddit's Hair Transplant sub. I am making a direct call for HRN's leadership to actually listen to their own amazing community and remove Dr John Diep of Los Gatos CA from their list

[Wallaby_Upstairs]

I am a moderator on the reddit's hair transplant forum user/WallabyUpstairs1496/ . I wrote a lengthy post on what I see as issues with Dr Diep, issues with the HRN paid leadership, and issues of dealing with their financial conflicts of interest, which is the only conclusion I am currently able to make as to why this doctor has been enabled by this forum for so long despite the towering amount of compelling and corroborated evidence of his dangerous and unethical medical practices.

I will not be providing the link here. You can find it on my subreddit, and the text of that post will be pasted below this message addressing this forum directly.

Another part of this message is a permanent open invitation for HRN's leadership to provide their own statements regarding the evidence in my post. Anyone reading that post has the right to the most complete story possible, and thus we will make it as easy as possible for HRN's leadership to provide their statements.

I know that Melvin has had issues with other members on the subreddit, and wished to no longer post in the subreddit. If there's anything I can do to facilitate making it easier for them to address the criticism, such as only have me and them being able to post in that thread, I can do it. But if neither wishes to do that, only would like to provide statements over email, or on here, that's fine too.

Melvin has his on subreddit /r/HairTransplantNetwork and he can provide his comments there. I also saw that he said I can come on his forum to post my critiques.

To be clear, I am not demanding any statements. If they do not want to provide any that's fine. What I am saying is, since the readers have the right to the most complete story possible, HRN's leadership will always have to right to address the criticism, and I will make it as easy as possible for them to do so.

This post will become part of our official guide, and will be posted in the sidebar. That post will be there forever and will be one of the first pieces of information news users will come across when going to the subreddit. Due to our primarily principle of scouting surgeons through independent reviews and HRN having the biggest corpus of independent reviews, this will probably be our 2nd most emphasized documentation. Even if HRN's leadership is shamed enough in this particular instance into removing Dr Diep from their list, I am pessimistic about a fundamental shift towards listening to their own community, which at time they were antagonizing towards. People have spent hours of their time and valuable mental energy trying to do good by the community, and he calls them 'Diep Witch Hunters'.

https://www.hairrestorationnetwork.com/topic/57329-fue-experience-wdr-diep-mhta-clinic/page/6/#comment-560679

The text to my original post will be posted in the comment below. It seems that there are different markdown systems between reddit and this forum, so the separator and quotings may be hard to distinguish.

 

 

[Wallaby_Upstairs]

The Amazing Hair Restoration Network community vs Pat and Melvin Lopez. HRN's disturbing history of knowingly letting one of the most deeply unethical surgeons in the world continue to botch their members : Dr John Diep of Los Gatos California.

The thread title might seem confusing for those who are not very familiar with HRN, but there are often struggles between Melvin (and by extension his boss Pat) and the community at the Hair Restoration Network. I've seen this in a number of areas, but in this post I would like to focus on one specific area:  Dr John Diep of Los Gatos CA, one of the most unethical surgeons I have ever seen, if not the most unethical

The HRN community tries to bring up that Dr Diep should not be recommended, and tries to warn others about seeing Dr Diep on newbie threads. This is the majority of users and vast majority of senior members. There are people who have had good experiences with Dr Diep and have left their review, but as far as I know Melvin is the only regular there who defends him. From what I have observed, The HRN community in general gives superior advice to Melvin, perhaps due to a lack of financial bias or just better judgement, but unfortunately Melvin's status as a moderator gives him a lot of weight in the eyes of newbies

It is for this reason that despite the HRN community's best efforts, people keep going to Diep. Not to mention some people don't even go on the forums that much, they trust the HRN list of recommended surgeons and just go with them. But sometimes the HRN community prevails despite Melvin's best efforts. Here's an example

 

Some more background, Pat is the owner of the Hair Restoration Network, and pays Melvin a salary to moderate the forum. Pat is behind the scenes, but he handles the business side of HRN including the business contracts he has with each of the forum sponsors. Since Pat has specifically hired Melvin to moderate the forum and produce their youtube videos, Melvin is the face of HRN and I can only assume Melvin is an extension of Pat philosophy towards running HRN. This isn't is the only reason why I mention Pat, I also mention Pat because I assume he gets the majority of the money he makes off of Diep's sponsorship

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I am going to bring up HRN's financial situation, because financial bias is the only reason I can think of that is causing Melvin/Pat to work against their own community. I don't know for sure how much revenue they have been I've seen estimates of around $800,000 in revenue from their surgeon sponsorships [ I often see this cited in sponsorship estimates , from The Bald Truth podcast What I want you go keep in mind is the millions of dollars in revenue over the years is because I feel this financial bias that has caused so much damage to their own members

Another thing I want warn is that I will be expressing some very strong words. I try not to be hyperbolic but that is for the reader to decide, but if it helps to even out where I am coming from, you can take a look at how I handled the moderation for this thread criticizing Melvin, some points of which though were unfair and I deleted those comments, I also froze the thread on Thanksgiving right after he got his response in because I didn't want him to worry about responding over the holidays

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Touching back on Melvin and Pat vs the HRN community. Melvin and Pat often use 'we're', as if them and the community are a single entity, but the community is better the both of them. Melvin and Pat censor, hinder, and ignore the advice of their own community, while profiting millions of dollars over the years from the thousands upon thousands hours of work each person makes in their independent reviews

Both Melvin and Pat and hair transplant recipients. So they well know the full extent of the of damage a poor hair transplant can have on one's life. Not only do they tend to have to wait for a precious year in their life for a repair, they do it with their appearance ruined to some extent for that duration. There is trauma involved. They could have spent that time with an enhanced appearance that reflects their identity. In many cases grafts are destroyed, limiting their lifetime yield, and limiting the improvement that can be make to their appearances. Melvin and Pat's reckless behavior is having real, and permanent affects on people. Also the financial issues. For most, a hair transplant makes a significant impact on their finances, and thus quality of life. Repairs aren't cheap. There's a lot more that can be said. All this is why Melvin and Pat's support of Dr Diep infuriates me

The rest of this post will be me bringing up some Diep's results from HRN. This won't be comprehensive, there is just too much. It really feels infinite, no matter how far back I go searching for Dr Diep, there is no lack of subpar results.

You can search Diep's results here

https://www.hairrestorationnetwork.com/search/?&q=diep&page=1&quick=1&search_and_or=or&search_in=titles&sortby=relevancy

My goal is just to give a solid impression of how reckless Pat and Melvin's behavior is, and the horrific damage they have done to their members, all while profiting off of the hundreds and thousands of hours their community puts into their independent reviews and advice, which they do for free

Again, not comprehensive, I only typed Diep's name into the search result and went back a few pages, and results are listed in chronological order of the date of the last commented posted to the thread, and also I did go down a few rabbit holes to find additional threads

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There have been reports that his techs seems straight out of high school, treating grafts like sort sort of high school chem lab experiment. That his techs are brand new, they don't know each other. He doesn't seem to have a salaried staff. This is a comment from a recent patient

>I think a lot of clinics have techs do the implants, but it is a bit of a concern if you don't know their experience level. I've seen posts from years back up to now where Diep patients complain that their techs seemed inexperienced, which is quite strange. During my second procedure, the techs were asking each other questions where you would ask someone you don't know too well, like "how old are you, are you married, etc." They were also listening to music, singing, and gossiping most of the time and it felt kind of like I was a high school experiment being worked on during science class

 

And then below is a comment from a patient who got their procedure from them many years ago, where he still seemed to use brand new technicians on patients. In fact, they were so inexperienced that they caused the patient to pass out because they cut the blood circulation to his head when they were washing his hair, and he woke up on Dr Diep's table

>The day of my procedure there were two techs who looked really young, and were really new. I don't know how new, but at the beginning Diep was preparing some things as the two techs were washing my hair. I felt the angle my head was tilting back was uncomfortable but I figure it was nothing I couldn't handle. Then I wake up on Dr Diep's table with the two techs staring at me with very concerned looks on their faces. Turns out the angle my head was tilted back and resting on the sink cut off my bloodflow and I passed out. Turns out the techs were new and still getting used to things. I didn't care about this, but was really made me uncomfortable was that they were doing all the placement of the grafts. I wonder if this is why my transplant turned out badly

 

The same person mentioned that Dr Diep basically mislead him into thinking he would throw away extra grafts unless he paid for them on the day of the procedure

>This is something I always wondered about. For my first hair transplant, the morning of the procedure, the surgeon hands me a form. It says that if he extracts more grafts than quoted, I can have those implanted by paying the per graft fee. I didn't want any grafts to be thrown away, so I signed the form. It was a 1000 graft implant, but they ended up with 1400, so I had to pay 40% more than I had budgeted out for

 

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Another disturbing review, it was the technicians first day and she was cutting hair follicles from the strip! This was Jan of this year

>one of technician was brand new, like she it was her first day and others where showing her how to find hand cloves…i think she was trying to cut hair follicles from strip. I got pretty nervous because this was supposed to be best clinic in the west coast and I was being experimented on

 

Later on, this user mentions he also suspects that the graft count was not accurate

>I was promised 2750 - I counted approximately based on pictures…it’s coming less than that…I’ll redo again

I don't know how long Diep has been practicing for but seems like since the mid 2000s at least, and he still doesn't have a salaried staff?? But even worse, he is using entry-level technicians. Even worse, they are described to be very young and straight of high school, so these not only entry-level technicians, these are entry level adults

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Someone who had their Diep procedure repaired by Dr Shapiro

 

 

What was really disturbing in that thread is that the patient described incisions being made by a tool with multiple points on it to create the incisions. That is barbaric. I have NEVER heard of any clinic doing this. Not even in hair mills. Each incisions needs to be made individually and carefully, with the right depth. The scalp isn't 2D!

In this thread, you had 3 members call for Diep's removal,  2 of which are some of their most knowledgeable senior members: 5BetaReductase, and RTC of RateThisClinic fame /u/ratethisclinic

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Someone who  had their Diep procedure repaired by  Dr Nadimi

 

In that thread, they discuss how he didn't receive the best feedback about his procedure from Dr Diep from a separate thread. His procedure with Dr Diep is clearly subpar, but Melvin states

>Yea man, the results are stunning. You have a full head of hair, the most compelling part is that the before pictures were taken in a dim room, and the after photos under bright lights. I say let the photos do the talking, and it's clear this result compared to your last results are not even in the same league

 

I want to draw your attention to a pattern, where Melvin always distorts the real quality of Dr Diep's work

The user, baldlivesmatter actually had to have several grafts removed and relocated from the Diep procedure. And after baldlivesmatter finally got some honest feedback, he requested it to be changed to mention it was a repair job. But Melvin seemed to refuse, because Melvin then named it "Melvin- Moderator changed the title to 1300 Grafts Dr. Nadimi"

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Another botched procedure, very low yield and what did yield is very artificial looking

 

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Here's other examples of Melvin playing PR for Dr Diep's very questionable methods

 

>The graft placement could be disputed by laymans all day long, the truth is none of us are surgeons. It’s a bit like telling a quarter back he has two foundational flaws with how he throws a ball, even though he gets touch downs and you’ve never played a game of football a day in your life.

This logical is often used by hairmill shills to quiet criticism. The fact of the matter is, this statement assumes two things, 1 that the surgeon is using best practices and 2, the surgeon is ethical. From other allegations of Dr Diep, neither are true.  Finally, I absolutely have trust in the community to at least try to interpret the technique he used. A moderator's role isn't to enforce some made up limit on what the community is able to learn about hair transplantation

Another comment by Melvin

> This is now the second time you’ve made accusations against me, first time calling me “Diep mafia”, now saying my friend got “white glove treatment” for being my “BFF.” Literally, right after another forum member gave their own personal account of their experience
>
> I’m tired of having to babysit this thread with outrageous claims from people who’ve never been to Diep, or have had any interaction with him. Members of the community are getting tired of it. You set your agenda from the start, no one is gonna change your mind, even if your results turn out great, which I’m sure it will, your agenda is set. That’s fine, you can feel however you’d like about your results, and share your feelings. But I will no longer tolerate baseless accusations. I hope I’ve made myself clear

 JimCraig was right to bring up possible white gloves treatments. Sure, point out that this can't be proven 100%, but financial incentives should absolutely be discussed, and the fact of the matter is Diep has a huge financial incentive to do good work for a prominent member of that forum.

Diep has produced good work in the past, and seemingly has hired good techs in the past. But from the patients own testimonials, he also hired bottom of the barrel brand new technicians as well. Yet Melvin feels that this disparity should not be explored

In this thread, another Senior member, BDK081522, who is a 4 procedure veteran, including (how I would summarize it as) having a very unideal procedure with Dr Diep, made this comment

>To those reading this thread that have not had surgery with Dr Diep, it may seem like many of @jimcraig152 posts are bashing him. I don't see them as surgeon bashing. I think he is offering his insight into his unique experience and allowing prospective patients a glimpse into what they will likely encounter with Dr. Diep. Hindsight is 20/20 and many patients look back and critique every aspect of their surgical experience AFTER that said experience. It's human nature. You extrapolate data based on what you experience. Unfortunately, most of us don't scrutinize the details and tend to focus more on the positive when searching for a surgeon. If we really took the time to understand how the surgeon works prior to scheduling then you could be researching for years. In actuality, if you want to get it right on the first try that is exactly what you should do. After you have selected your surgeon in your mind it is very difficult to see the negatives pertaining to that surgeon. Our minds use a defense mechanism because we want to think we've chosen the best and want to get to surgery as quickly as possible. What I've learned is that the age old saying that all good things come to those who wait is true more often than not. Take the time, do the research, and make a selection based off of reason, not an emotional connection to needing your hair back as soon as possible. Hair restoration is a journey and it has ups, downs, and everything in between. Just be sure to buckle up because the ride lasts a lifetime

It's comments like this why I have always praised the community at HRN, but never the moderation. The community is comprised of real salt of the earth people, who spends hours of their valuable free time to try and better the lives of others, for free, due to the compassion and empathy they have for those going through his journey

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This is a thread specifically asking for a surgeon for repairing Dr Diep's work

 

In this thread, a former Diep patient said that him and one other person got a repair done by Dr Konior. And Dr Konior has said he has been getting a lot of repair cases specifically for Dr Diep. This alone should have been grounds to remove Diep (after a confirmation from Dr Konior) but not with Pat and Melvin's reckless ignorance. For those who don't know, from what I have seen, Dr Konior has the strongest reputation I have ever seen for a hair transplant surgeon. But even if he was not #1 and just highly regarded, it is still a giant red flag if any highly regarded surgeon has gotten a ton of repair cases for one particular surgeon

Could you imagine instances of Dr Shapiro repair cases? Dr Gabel repair cases? Dr Konior repair cases?

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He withholds medical records from this patients. Medical records that patients are legally entitled to have, but he keeps it from them even after one of his patients had been requesting them for over a year

>I've been trying to get my surgical photos from Dr Diep for over a year. Every time I would follow up, they would say they are still working on it. Recently they started ignoring my follow ups. I have been informed in my consultations that those photos would be helpful in my lifetime planning, since we can look at where exactly they tried to implanted grafts previously

>I had tried before and given up, until my consultation with Dr Gabel. He informed me that those photos are a part of my medical record, and that I am legally entitled to them, and if they refuse, there are some legal options that could be painful for them

 

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I have found bad reviews of Dr Diep that have been deleted

https://web.archive.org/web/20220405224816/https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3AeESksxhsElkJ%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.hairrestorationnetwork.com%2Ftopic%2F63290-i-had-a-horrible-and-traumatic-experience-with-dr-diep%2F+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

Now one reason could be is that the user themself asked for their thread to be deleted. I don't know for sure why that thread was deleted. But it certainly falls onto a broader pattern of protecting Diep.

Maybe it was the lack of photos, but if that was the case, he should have just asked like he did with a positive review, that he just left up

 

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Another diep review, with one of the worst FUT scars I have ever seen.

 

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Another poor review by Diep. You can't give credibility to the OP since they didn't post any pictures, but someone else in the comments did post pictures of their own, and confirmed the terrible practices described by the OP, and then some. He also describes how the technicians seem very young, collaborating the allegations brought up by the other people who mentioned that he uses very young, inexperienced technicians

 

>  the only thing he didn't mention was that my hairs that did grow came out very coily and stick out every which way. Dr Diep says that when you go to other HT doctors. they don't care about the way they put your hair in so it grows all kinds of crazy ways and it doesn't flow
>
> But that's exactly what diep did. all the hairs are going in different directions plus there is minimal growth. His technicians do all the work and he doesn't really do much. He may be an expert but I doubt all his technicians are from seeing my results. I guess they damage the hair follicles when they implanted or whatever they do
>
> The bottom line is how my supposed to wear my hair out like this. The growth and density is not even that good but let's forget about that for now and just look at the quality of the hairs that actually grew. These hairs are always coily
>
>  I have two hair transplants from him and both were horrible. I went in to question him about the bad growth on my first transplant. Then he convinced me to get a second one because sometimes people need more than one he said.which I can understand. But both were horrible experiences and I wish I didn't do it with him
>
> When you pay for a hair transplant with him you're actually paying for his technicians to do the hair transplant for him. so you're not getting his skill you're getting their skills. And they all look like young girls
>
>
> So yes in the YouTube videos he does seem like an expert but he's not the one that actually performing the surgery on your head it's the little young girls who do. They are damaging the hair follicles
>
> If I were to go and question him a second time about this. I doubt he will make me feel at ease about the situation. Whether you believe the original poster or not. I know myself he's telling the truth because everything he described is exactly on point to how my situation is
>
> I too cannot leave the house without wearing a hat. Big mistake. Please do more research

Melvin may claim ignorance to a lot of these concerns (if he ever responds), but he can't about using contract technicians. In his own words

> Modern hair transplant surgery is a team effort. What matters is the consistency of the clinic. You can not compare fly-by-night technicians to the techs who’ve been with H&W for decades

 

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An 80's style pluggy result from Diep

 

>As others have said multiple times in the thread, my right side grew out to be pluggy and unnatural.

This person had to have a repair with Diep as well. The person also mentioned Diep's poor extraction technqiues

>My recent repair made Diep's extraction feel like 19th century technology. Yes, yes, I know it's all about results, but it's unbelievable how much faster my body recovered from the more recent surgery. You couldn't even see the extraction marks after day 4, and I removed my bandage in <24hrs with no subsequent bleeding

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Another review of Diep's bizarre pattern of doing FUE extractions from only one side of the head.

 

He also gives observations about Diep's shortcuts

>He didn’t mark extraction . Sums up about what I remember as well . He did all the extractions out really quick ,made incisions really fast and left . Honestly he was in the room no longer an hour total time , it was mostly his assistants who I spent most my time with . Although I do feel like he short cuts his teq/work to complete 2 surgeries a day plus endless consultation meetings . The guy does execute and from what I’ve seen results aren’t bad . I feel like mine to soon to tell but not bad ,I’m just worried about my donor and the cornrow field appearance

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A low yield result from Diep

 

In this thread Melvin wanted him to post a more flattering picture of his hair. This was the user's response (and again, one of the many reasons why I praise the HRN community)

> don't want to style my hair and post favorable photos because that is not beneficial to other people trying to make an informed decision on a procedure that's permanent. I posted a photo around my four month mark of my hair styled in favorable lighting. I could just post photos like that and people would think I had a great result when I did not. I also don't want others taking those types of photos and misleading others into thinking I had a good result. Anyways, here are photos I just took without touching my hair, so this is what it looks like normally:

Something I want to note which I found disturbing, is the Diep may have done so much damage that according to Dr Pinto (who has prestige in the hair transplant community and is one of HRN's sponsors) said that it may have compromised his donor availability

>I also had a consultation with Dr. Pinto's clinic recently. They had me send a number of photos and videos of my hair and recommended I hold off from further hair transplants until I'm 2-3 years post-op to avoid permanently scarring my frontal area and because the survival rate of grafts may be low if I get a third procedure too soon. They also stated that my scar is very wide and that it may have compromised my donor availability, which is a downer because I'm probably going to need to fill the whole top of my head at some point in time. Here's a recent photo of my scar

> They just said it potentially damaged an important area of the donor region. I guess they'd have to get a good evaluation in-person to gauge, but the scar doesn't look good. I was shopping earlier today and trying on some clothes in a booth that had a mirror where I could see the back of my head. I could see my scar and the area around it looked pretty patchy and I haven't had a hair cut in weeks. It's going to be a real pain in the ass to cover that up when I get older

 

With another user mentioning he has the same type of scar and is also worried about that consequence

>I'm sorry to hear that, and that was incredibly disheartening for me to read as well. Please update us on what the verdict is

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Another subpar case where the user lays out his criticism

 

There is a balance between not running on someone's parade, and belittling their own criticism. The fact of the matter is this person's transplant absolutely looks like a hair transplant. If this person were a movie star, everyone would have pointed it out. Yet instead of providing honestly, Melvin diminishes the very real issues the OP brings up

>The implanted hair texture/density doesn't flow with the natural hair

> Building on point 1 above, which I believe is directly as a result of Diep's work - the angle of the implanted hair does not flow well with the natural hair. Its obviously not implanted standing straight up, but the natural hair flows forward and down, where the implanted hair constantly wants to angle upwards and out

>There is a small area in my right temple where very few grafts took. I don't know why this happened, but it is annoying thing to look at and work around every day

They dude could have had a knockout procedure from any one of many qualified surgeons, but this guy has to go through life with a subpar result just so Pat can get a few thousand grant of blood money every month

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This to me is Diep's most disturbing case, where Diep extracted 1500 grafts, but only planted 800. He basically destroyed 700 of this patient's grafts. Was it due to an absurd transection rate? Or perhaps this patient didn't sign his surprise extra contract the morning of the procedure and made good on his promise to throw away the extra grafts, I don't know

 

 

Another thing I want to point out. The amazing HRN community is warning the OP of an obviously dangerous surgeon, including someone who has direct experience with getting a procedure with him. Again, this mod ruins the efforts of his community with the same lazy reasoning

>This Diep head hunting is getting out of hand, the majority of the complaints are from people who’ve never been to Diep. If you don’t feel comfortable, cancel it asap

> I presented at least a dozen results spanning from 2015-2019 and they’re all good. I don’t see any changes, here’s a result from 2019 from @shookwon33 and @Dadda recent results look good in my opinion. That said, one case looks questionable on one side, but there’s still time
>
> Look at facts, are these cases that people are pointing too even past 6 months? Not gonna convince you otherwise. If you feel like Hasson has better work, by all means choose Hasson, he’s an excellent choice
>
> Here’s my advice, talk to real patients, below is a list
>

No matter how good the HRN community is, a newbie may not understand this, and would bias towards Melvin due to his status as a moderator.

Getting back to the case, the numbers were counted by both the patient himself and someone who blew up the image and went to the painstaiking task of counting each and every punchout. Melvin claims that number came out of thin air, and was called out on it

>This is blatant gas lighting and frankly I'm extremely disappointed. There was proof, but it got deleted and archived*. You know that. Dr. Diep's punches are extremely easy to count, and  @Rolandas manually put in a colored dot for each hole with the high definition pic OP posted. Each color was 100 holes. I counted that picture myself. It was 1500 holes. Go look at the archive yourself if you don't believe me. He did the same thing for his procedure of 3000+ grafts and made a video about it

When cornered, all Melvin can say is 'I believe Diep'

>I’m not gaslighting anyone, I’m repeating what Dr. Diep has said to me, and I believe him, you don’t have too, you can believe what you want, but to speak in facts, is wrong. It’s clear Diep doesn’t have a lot of fans here. That’s okay, we can agree to disagree

No you can't. Facts are not opinions. 1500 is not an opinion. This is an infuriating wanton disregard to a clearly disturbing procedure. 1500 was even conservative, probably more like 1600

After the HRN community (And they are amazing for doing this) cornered Melvin into a corner about the photographic evidence, I --- you not, 2 minutes later he makes a comment claiming that he too did a count

>I will review the photo, I did not count anywhere near 1,400 holes. I will send it to Diep as well for his response

Holy ------. 6 year olds can lie better than he does

During all this, another senior member comes in with his warning

> When I asked if he could check my donor density with a microscope, etc, he found some excuse. I guess that's not something he does during consultations. He barely looked at my hair from far away, not even taking so much as a glance at my donor area. Then when I asked him how many lifetime grafts he thought I had available via FUE, he told me 10-12k. I know that is blatantly false (and how could he know? He didn't even look at or touch my donor area?) considering I have diffuse thinning all over my scalp, which I have since confirmed affects my donor as well, with weak density and a higher than average number of miniaturizing hairs (on my way to DUPA, lest DHT blockers can prevent future loss). I don't even want to think what my donor area would be looking like if I had blindly gone for surgery with him

Melvin's last comment before locking the thread is

>As for the community, I am working with this individual and will be looking into these allegations

And he has never updated anyone. Those who saw the original threads know that he his procedure with Diep was extremely traumatic; we all could tell he was severely distraught. This survivor has been in contact with others including the hair transplant community. This person has received a repair and is doing better

This is trauma, financial, and physical impact on his life could have been prevented, but it wasn't due to Pat/Melvin's wanton indifference to Dr Diep's pattern of terrible ethics

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Melvin did actually address Diep recently

>A lot has been said about Diep. Does he have some poor cases? Yes. Does he have some great cases? Yes. I implore anyone reading to do their own research. Look at all the reviews spanning back from 2014

This is lazy reasoning, and there's a reason why hairmills love this defense. But no, getting a hair transplant shouldn't be like playing Russian Roulette. Yes, there are good clinics that sometimes how poor yield, no, that's not a reason to ignore the patterns of an unethical doctor

Here's another thread where he uses the same reasoning

 

Again, "But look at all the people he didn't botch" is no excuse to ignore a disturbing pattern of unethical practices

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Not a patient case, but Melvin banned a user for the mildest jab at Diep

>That’s sketchy 🤨

Referring to allegations of Diep's paid posting.

 

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I'd like to bring things back to Melvin/Pat, and some of the other troubling behaviors I've seen.

He lies about his financial relationships, and bans people for bringing it up

>This is not my website. I don’t get paid by any surgeon. I do this as a passion to help other hair loss sufferers. Go troll elsewhere 👋🏼

 

The person who brought it up was banned. After the date of that post, the user never posted again and his profile says 'Restricted Facilities'. He was also the creator of that thread.

I find that very rich because he considers lashing out as an indicator of guilt.

>You’ve been caught, clearly agenda posting. I had my suspicions but you lashing out like this just confirmed it. Trolls will never be able to hide their true identity.

 

You can read the context, but the tl;dr is why he was commenting on threads that were posted in the topic. It's a pretty silly accusation, people tend to click on links that are posted, and the user rightfully pointed out the absurdity of the accusation. Melvin took that as lashing out, and thus admission of guilt, and then banned him. I'm sorry, but whatever he said isn't anywhere as close to a knee jerk reaction than to permanently ban someone. And unlike Melvin, that guy who questioned his financial relationships absolutely has a case for questioning Melvin's agenda.

All financial conflicts must be questioned, period.

You'll see Melvin sometimes admit that he said receive a salary when cornered, saying something like 'Of course I get paid, do you think my time is free?'.

 

(this is pretty interesting read, as it provided the most details I've seen on Melvin's salary)

First, NOBODY'S time is 'free'. Everyone's time is valuable, and the people who post their honest full patient journeys provide the vast majority of HRN's value. Their time is valuable too. This subreddit also has moderators, we all do it for free. Most forum moderators do it for free. The thing is, I don't mind if a moderator gets paid, as long as they don't use their financial incentives to post misinformation, and they are honest and up front about their financial conflicts of interest. If they are not, and are bending the quality of information towards their financial interesting, then they are just leeching value and causing damage to line their own pockets

So Melvin is basically lying when he says "I don’t get paid by any surgeon.". Yeah, he has the technicality, but surgeons pay to sponsor the website who gives money to Melvin. Omitting this information is deceptive, and is basically lying. Sure you can argue the technicality of the lie, but the deception is clear and honestly makes no difference ethically. People absolutely have the right to know the financial conflicts of interest of any information they get

It's not good enough that he gives more details in other parts of the website. Not everyone can read Melvin's entire post history. There are people who will read this and assume that he has no financial incentive. Either way, there is absolutely no excuse for being misleading about your financial conflicts of interest

Right now, all that is posted is my (unfinished) collection of evidence along with my perspective. Our users have the right to the most complete information possible, and that includes any additional evidence and perspectives provided by Pat, Melvin, and anyone else who represents HRN's business. This is an open invitation that will never expire.

This post will become part of our official guide, and will be posted in the sidebar. That post will be there forever and will be one of the first pieces of information news users will come across when going to the subreddit. Due to our primarily principle of scouting surgeons through independent reviews and HRN having the biggest corpus of independent reviews, this will probably be our 2nd most emphasized documentation. Any user that reads the post has the right to the most complete information possible, and that includes HRN's leadership's perspective, which can be given at any time, in any medium (weather it be directly on this subreddit, on their own forum, email, anything). Even if HRN's leadership is shamed enough in this particular instance into removing Dr Diep, I am pessimistic about a fundamental shift towards listening to their own community, which at time they were antagonizing towards. People have spent hours of their time and valuable mental energy trying to do good by the community, and he calls them 'Diep Witch Hunters'.

 

To be clear, I am not demanding any statements. If they do not want to provide any that's fine. What I am saying is, since the rights have the right to the most complete story possible, HRN's leadership will always have to right to address the criticism, and I will make it as easy as possible for them to do so.

Please keep in mind that my criticism is not beyond criticism. I'll also be reaching out to Melvin and Pat (if I can) and making them aware of this thread. If there's anything that I got factually wrong, I'll be more than happy to discuss it. There is a lot, and I would be surprised if I got it all somehow right. Melvin and Pat absolutely have the right to defend themselves, and there's huge grains of salt you need to take when reading my post until Melvin and Pat can offer a response. Melvin expressed he no longer wishes to participate in this sub. If either of them wants, I can lock this thread for a periods where only they and me can comment. I am willing look into any ideas they have when incorporating their feedback. I will be reaching out to them and will be updating with their responses.

But for each of my opinions and summaries, I have provided direct links to the patient, community, and moderator comments. You can make up your own mind for Melvin's conduct. But I hope that the overall pattern's of Diep and Melvin are clear, and that Diep should not be on any recommended list, and Melvin's enabling of him is unethical and should be stopped

Anyone who has an account on Hair Restoration Network, please for the love of god confront Melvin. I know this is a big ask. I know many of you have spent hours of your valuable time, not to mention the mental strain of dealing with the trauma of dealing with this doctor, but simply this doctor should not be enabled any further. He never should have been. He should have been removed a long time ago. Enough is enough. Too many people have been damaged physically, mentally, financially, and spiritual. No more. No more people should be damaged so that Pat can make another couple grand a month of blood money off of him, and give Melvin a cut. This will never happen, but in a ultra idealistic world he would at the very least take every last dollar he made from Diep (again, which is a small percent of what Diep makes from Patients going to him) and it would be given to every person Diep has botched because people trusted Melvin and HRN's list enough to go see him. The very least they can do is not only stop enabling him, but officially warn others against his services.

I am aware of the chilling effects Melvin has on others. He bans, or at least conveys an impression of banning people for triggering his paranoia, but remember this, they need you a lot more than you need them. I appreciate what Pat has done in the early days, but today he's just leeching from the community. I actually don't mind him making money off the boards, at all, but it's all sorts of messed up when they distort the reality of certain surgeons and hair transplantation in general for profit and ignoring the physical, financial, mental, and spiritual damage they are doing to real people, people who were nice enough to trust them

[mister_25]

Thank you for the great detailed post. I personally believe this call for action and this discussion was way overdue.

Diep is one of the two surgeons that I find myself often questioning why he is on the forums recommended list. There are many stories of irresponsible techs, grafts placed in rows with improper angles, rushed consultations/planning, trying to upsell grafts at the worst times, horrible FUT scars and more. He doesn't embody the core ideals of Hair Restoration by operating on alleged 21 year old NW2s and he is completely outclassed by the other options on the recommended list in terms of care, ethics and results.

I believe that once upon a time he was a decent surgeon and a okay choice amongst the other surgeons, but he has lost passion in his work and tries to get people in and out the door as fast as possible whilst also charging enormous prices for it, not to dissimilar from ASMED.

11 minutes ago, Wallaby_Upstairs said:

Melvin and Pat censor

I haven't noticed any censoring, could you provide examples? 

 

[Wallaby_Upstairs]

36 minutes ago, mister_25 said:

 

I believe that once upon a time he was a decent surgeon and a okay choice amongst the other surgeons, but he has lost passion in his work and tries to get people in and out the door as fast as possible whilst also charging enormous prices for it, not to dissimilar from ASMED.

I haven't noticed any censoring, could you provide examples? 

 

When do you think this time is? I recall people warning about him on hair loss and hair transplant forums since the mid 2010s at least, maybe earlier.

For your 2nd question yes, actually I might make an addendum to my post addressing specifically this, because censorship is a big accusation and may need it's own focus. But besides what I have put in my original post, at this time one particular off the top of my head I would like to bring light to right now is JimCraigs and his review thread . Melvin restricted his posting for what he said in his own review thread. That alone might be a case of censorship, including censorship via chilling effects. But even on his restriction notice, Melvin said he'll allow him to post updates.

To be clear, JimCraig was given not banned on the website at that time, only heavily restricted status, so the mod would need to manually approve his posts, and he directly said he would allow review updates. However, his posts never got approved. He privately messaged me the update he provided to his review, along with the waiting mod review notice, so only he and the mods could see, but nobody else. At the time is was up for a year, and it never approved. I saw the screen shot, there was nothing rule breaking, just an update to his review. An photo update that I feel the HRN community is entitled to see. I consider that censorship. I will ask JimCraig if I can include his screen shot an possible addendum, but I think he mentioned he no longer has access to it since he his status on this website is changed to officially banned.

Like as I mentioned with any of the points I brought up on my original post, HRN's leadership needs to provide their perspective on this incident to get the most complete context. When I post about this back on reddit, I'll also includes whatever statements are given by HRN's leadership on this incident if they provide any.

 

[Wallaby_Upstairs]

Update,

One of our users reached out to me with a surgeon who had very deep concerns about Dr Diep including the organizations he is a part of. It was during a consult when this user learned about his surgeon's concerns. The user provided me contact information with this surgeon. This surgeon is a part of HRN's elite coalition board. I reached out with this message.
 

Quote

 

The reason for this message is our concerns with a hair transplant doctor named Dr John Diep, of Los Gatos CA. One of our subscribers privately told me that you had deep concerns about this doctor. On our own forum we have saw the horrific medical practices and outcomes from this doctor, and we are trying everything we can to prevent others from going through a similar fate.

We feel one of the biggest enablers of Dr John Diep is the forum HairRestorationNetwork, where he is not only on their recommended list, but the moderation team actively recommends them and disparages their own members trying to warn others about him.

I made a post detailing the disturbing and corroborated allegations for his medical practices here

https://old.reddit.com/r/HairTransplants/comments/zmh768/the_amazing_hair_restoration_network_community_vs/

We noticed that you are a sponsor of that forum, and not only a sponsor but you are on their elite coalition board. Because of this, you may be able to persuade the Hair Restoration Network's leadership in ways that their own community may not.

At this time, we would like to mildly give a suggestion of reaching out to them about their concerns with doctor Diep.

I am emailing at this particular time because the HRN community has called for a review for a botched case here

https://www.hairrestorationnetwork.com/topic/66940-21-year-old-that-had-procedure-done-11-months-ago/page/2/#comments

However, the last time this has happened, Melvin took Dr Diep's side, simply citing 'I believe Dr Diep'.

And now I have directly confronted them here

https://www.hairrestorationnetwork.com/topic/66980-im-a-mod-for-reddits-hair-transplant-sub-i-am-making-a-direct-call-for-hrns-leadership-to-actually-listen-to-their-own-amazing-community-and-remove-dr-john-diep-of-los-gatos-ca-from-their-list/

Though given HRN's history of protecting this doctor, I am pessimistic anything will change.

I understand  there may be reasons to prefer not to talk to them. Or at least only handle this very privately. Feel free to ignore this email, we don't need to know.

Best Regards,

WallabyUpstairs1496

 

 

[ndksv22]

I disagree about the censoring. If you spend a lot of time on Reddit you should know that real censoring means posts that don't fit the mod's agenda are deleted after 5 minutes. 

I see a lot of discussions and posts where people state their disagreement with the forum. 

[BaldingEagle1]

yeah if there was censoring as you say, then this thread wouldve been locked and/or deleted. not buying that part.

 

As for the dr, thats a very good and detailed post, lets hear what Melvin and Pat have to say.

[JayLDD]

He is obviously a capable surgeon but the ratio of positive/negative results and clear instances of low quality work are clearly telling. 

OP that post is a mess and overlong but at the end of the day the sentiment is sound.

I would say the same about a variety of other doctors however.

[Pbaird98]

I agree that the current Inclusion of Dr Diep should definitely be looked at urgently, having called for it on another thread it would appear the community is solidly behind this sentiment entirely. 
I’m guessing you have noticed there’s a 6 message limit for new users, and no access to PM, it resets though everyday. Don’t add anymore new/duplicate accounts as they would be removed, we need you to stay commenting here. 
I appreciate the time and effort you have put it to gather this information, it’s clear the results are all the evidence we need to make our own judgement. And it’s clear that a once talented Dr is no longer doing good work, worse still some really horrible work if we look at the most recent case here. 

Edited December 16, 2022 by Pbaird98

[mister_25]

3 hours ago, Wallaby_Upstairs said:

When do you think this time is? I recall people warning about him on hair loss and hair transplant forums since the mid 2010s at least, maybe earlier.

4 hours ago, Wallaby_Upstairs said:

Diep has produced good work in the past, and seemingly has hired good techs in the past. But from the patients own testimonials, he also hired bottom of the barrel brand new technicians as well. Yet Melvin feels that this disparity should not be explored

Producing Good work and having Good technicians at a technician based clinic is enough for me to label him at his prime as a "decent surgeon" and "okay choice". This is probably back when HTs were in its infancy or still being refined, I'd say going back to mid 2000s early 2010's.

He clearly had the skills and that is shown in his past good work. I just think that at one point his greed for money bested his desire to perfect his craft.

Regardless, I have found the recent Diep cases (2020-2022) to be quite poor and unnatural and I've seen quite a few Diep repair threads for my liking, I believe this alone regardless of question to his ethics, care and practices should subject him to removal of the recommended list.

When searching for Hair Transplant information, you will find HRN at the top and if not you will find HRN mentioned as one of the best resources on other forums/sites. That kind of power, being that respected, accessible and out there, it should be a requirement to at least have the recommended list of forum approved surgeons be screened for discrepancies/outliers such as Diep. Compare the other surgeons on the forums list to Diep and the consistency is night and day difference.

Regardless, even if Diep who produces poor results is on the recommended list. HRN still leads people in the right direction, I say its a invaluable resource. When I look at other websites I still see ASMED being promoted under "the big four" "best clinic in turkey" and r/HairTransplants is not that different. The top result is from Hair of Istanbul who I once considered as my #1 choice when I first started researching until I got referred to HRN. A lot worse gets recommended on the subreddit than Diep (Dr Cinik, Smile, Now Hair Time, Hair of Istanbul, Asli Tarcan) and information is not as accessible on the subreddit as I'd like.

In regards to censoring, its a massive accusation to the site as HRN is known for its transparency of information. You should definitely make your own post separate from this if your able to get concrete evidence to back up these claims.

 

[Pbaird98]

4 minutes ago, mister_25 said:

Producing Good work and having Good technicians at a technician based clinic is enough for me to label him at his prime as a "decent surgeon" and "okay choice". This is probably back when HTs were in its infancy or still being refined, I'd say going back to mid 2000s early 2010's.

He clearly had the skills and that is shown in his past good work. I just think that at one point his greed for money bested his desire to perfect his craft.

Regardless, I have found the recent Diep cases (2020-2022) to be quite poor and unnatural and I've seen quite a few Diep repair threads for my liking, I believe this alone regardless of question to his ethics, care and practices should subject him to removal of the recommended list.

When searching for Hair Transplant information, you will find HRN at the top and if not you will find HRN mentioned as one of the best resources on other forums/sites. That kind of power, being that respected, accessible and out there, it should be a requirement to at least have the recommended list of forum approved surgeons be screened for discrepancies/outliers such as Diep. Compare the other surgeons on the forums list to Diep and the consistency is night and day difference.

Regardless, even if Diep who produces poor results is on the recommended list. HRN still leads people in the right direction, I say its a invaluable resource. When I look at other websites I still see ASMED being promoted under "the big four" "best clinic in turkey" and r/HairTransplants is not that different. The top result is from Hair of Istanbul who I once considered as my #1 choice when I first started researching until I got referred to HRN. A lot worse gets recommended on the subreddit than Diep (Dr Cinik, Smile, Now Hair Time, Hair of Istanbul, Asli Tarcan) and information is not as accessible on the subreddit as I'd like.

In regards to censoring, its a massive accusation to the site as HRN is known for its transparency of information. You should definitely make your own post separate from this if your able to get concrete evidence to back up these claims.

 

Nicely put, it’s definitely the last couple of years that are more concerning from what I can see. It’s clear the pattern shows a Dr who’s work continues to decline/slip as time goes on. It simply cannot continue, from all the Drs I think shouldn’t be on the forums recommended list, this is the one that needs the most urgent attention. 

[asterix0]

@Wallaby_Upstairs There is some discretion that is up to the patient to filter the "signal" from the "noise", so to speak, when it comes to hair transplant results.

I will speak only for myself here, in that I am quite grateful this forum exists where I can query the numerous results from many patients.

It is unfortunate that clinics themselves do not post with the level of clarity that one would expect, namely, detailed post-op pictures, different stages of post-op, final results with clear comb through videos at multiple angles in direct lighting, etc.

I generally ignore the commentary of "this is a good result, bad result, etc." and come to my own conclusion based on the hundreds/thousands of different results I've analyzed.

I would advise every patient do the same, rather than relying on the opinions of others.

[asterix0]

@Wallaby_Upstairs Further, whether or not the recommend list includes this particular doctor is irrelevant to me, and should be irrelevant to anyone else. 

Look at the results yourself and filter the signal from the noise. 

[HappyMan2021]

After being on this forum for over 3 years now, and being a veteran hair transplant recipient, its very easy for me to filter through the "noise" and use common sense and not be naive when it comes to this forum. 

But I do worry about first time or brand new visitors who come to this forum (or any hair transplant forum) and take everything at face value. I'm sure there is a significant amount of people who only come here to look at the recommended surgeons and don't question anything. 

Regarding Dr. Diep - there have been an alarming # of cases over the last 2 years where patients have clearly been botched. Bad angles, scarring, questionable implantation and donor techniques. 

Not even just technique wise, but he has become ethically questionable as well. He operated and severely botched a 21 yr old patient, who paid 15k to be botched to boot. 

If Diep remains on the recommended list, I am very curious what the threshold is for removing someone from the list, because a track record of botched cases, including the badly botched 21 yr old, is evidently and perplexingly not enough. 

Edited December 16, 2022 by HappyMan2021

[mister_25]

3 minutes ago, asterix0 said:

whether or not the recommend list includes this particular doctor is irrelevant to me, and should be irrelevant to anyone else. 

As much as we'd like this statement to ring true for everyone. We are all different people, with different priorities, different levels of life experience and different events going on in our lives. Some people will just google "Best Hair Transplant Clinics" click the first link, book and await a botch job, or they might find their way here, click on the recommended list and search for the nearest surgeon, I would feel sorry for any of those that see Diep as the closest. For the people that either have too little time, unaware of the intricacies of hair transplants, or are just young and inexperienced with how things work. A consistent recommended list for the thoughtless will help many. So many people end up going to Hair Mills because that's what they find when they search "best clinics/hair transplants/cheap hair transplants" showing they put no thought into things. If one of those people stumbled on here and clicked on Diep, who by a majority of the active members of the community think that his results are subpar enough that warrants him to be removed but he hasn't been, then the list itself would be responsible. Sure you can always say "you have to accept a degree of responsibility for selecting them" or on the other end we could just have a fixed inarguable list of ethical surgeons to begin with where failure/mistakes will be unlikely.

When a site holds the title of "best resources for HT information" and they have a "recommended list" of surgeons. Obviously a person is going to consider that list to be in high regard. Not everyone has the time or the knowledge that they should apply themselves in free thinking on this matter. A lot of people just see it as "medical tourism" where you go visit a doctor, they do their thing and you leave with a head of hair in waiting.

[Pbaird98]

This is the statement for the recommended list:

Find a Top Hair Transplant Surgeon based on patient reviews.

Choose a hair transplant surgeon recommended by the world’s largest patient community based on excellent results and credentials.
 

None of this would now hold true for Dr Diep, He’s no longer producing excellent results and most certainly not recommended by the community here anymore.

Nobody is recommending him these days, the patient reviews now show poor work, yes people will come across better results from years ago, but in 2020 - 2022 it’s just no longer the case.

[HairEnthusiast101]

3 hours ago, ndksv22 said:

I disagree about the censoring. If you spend a lot of time on Reddit you should know that real censoring means posts that don't fit the mod's agenda are deleted after 5 minutes. 

I see a lot of discussions and posts where people state their disagreement with the forum. 

Yes on Reddit censorship is far more common. I’ve even been banned from subs for giving encouraging advice to someone and that isn’t what the sub wanted because it is “creepy” I guess to tell someone not to fix anything about themself because they look great the way they are. I think Reddit needs to be looked at with giving moderators too much power and this site has perfect allowance of what one can and can’t say

[HairRun]

Some of my posts and comments are in that thread. I had my procedure in 2010 and can confirm some of the practices mentioned in that thread including using brand new techs, and a multi-ended tool to create several incisions at once. I had reached out to several doctors on the list and many of them criticized the yield, angles, selection, placement, wide scar, including Dr Mwamba who criticized it on Melvin's live instagram chat. You can see my post history and repair journey for more details. I also provided that mod with the name of the doctor on the official list of recommended surgeons who was very concerned about Dr Diep, and if @Melvin- Moderator is interested I would be more than happy provide the name of the doctor to him too in a private message so that he can reach out to him . 

Edited December 16, 2022 by HairRun

[NikosHair]

No dog in the fight but the forum is clear on which surgeons are picked and remain as recommended.

The key is 'continue to show evidence of excellent patient results and satisfaction'.

They can't live off past successes, they are constantly under scrutiny and implication is ... they are given the boot if they fall below 'excellent'. 

 How we select the hair restoration physicians recommended on this site (hairtransplantnetwork.com)

Quote

Their recommendation is continued as long as they continue to show evidence of excellent patient results and satisfaction.

 

[FUT4000]

I had a procedure from diep and have ok results. I still have to have another procedure done to correct some of the mistakes made by diep and his technicians. I used to really defend Diep previously, but it got hard to do that as more and more results and experiences from other patients came out similar or worse than mine. I will eventually make a post after my second transplant to detail both experiences i have had. 

[asterix0]

44 minutes ago, mister_25 said:

As much as we'd like this statement to ring true for everyone. We are all different people, with different priorities, different levels of life experience and different events going on in our lives. Some people will just google "Best Hair Transplant Clinics" click the first link, book and await a botch job, or they might find their way here, click on the recommended list and search for the nearest surgeon, I would feel sorry for any of those that see Diep as the closest. For the people that either have too little time, unaware of the intricacies of hair transplants, or are just young and inexperienced with how things work. A consistent recommended list for the thoughtless will help many. So many people end up going to Hair Mills because that's what they find when they search "best clinics/hair transplants/cheap hair transplants" showing they put no thought into things. If one of those people stumbled on here and clicked on Diep, who by a majority of the active members of the community think that his results are subpar enough that warrants him to be removed but he hasn't been, then the list itself would be responsible. Sure you can always say "you have to accept a degree of responsibility for selecting them" or on the other end we could just have a fixed inarguable list of ethical surgeons to begin with where failure/mistakes will be unlikely.

When a site holds the title of "best resources for HT information" and they have a "recommended list" of surgeons. Obviously a person is going to consider that list to be in high regard. Not everyone has the time or the knowledge that they should apply themselves in free thinking on this matter. A lot of people just see it as "medical tourism" where you go visit a doctor, they do their thing and you leave with a head of hair in waiting.

Sure, but the alternative of this site not existing is a much larger detriment to all of us than some arbitrary list.

Ultimately, this site is the Admin's sandbox, you can play by his rules, or you are always free to "take your ball and go home". Plenty of bandwidth on the internet for you to make your own site/forum as well.

To be clear, I wish it wasn't like this, my position is just, this place has pros and cons, I try to contribute positively and objectively always, as I feel the truth is most important, but I also have no financial stake in anything here.

 

[HappyMan2021]

4 minutes ago, asterix0 said:

I also have no financial stake in anything here.

I agree with 90% of what you wrote in your post, but not this sentence. 

Anyone who gets surgery based on their interaction with HRN has a financial stake in this forum. It assists in where you spend potentially tens of thousands of dollars. 

A new visitor to this site can go to the recommended docs, see Dr. Diep, spend $15k, and get horribly botched. 

HRN is not at fault in a visitor's decision obviously - patients ultimately make the decision themselves and HRN is not holding a gun to their heads telling them what surgeon to select -  but HRN in this example would be an attribution point in the buyer journey

Edited December 16, 2022 by HappyMan2021

[Spring15]

I have seen subpar results from Dr Diep , I didn't even know he was recommended on here though 

[asterix0]

Just now, HappyMan2021 said:

I agree with 80% of what you wrote in your post, but not this. 

Anyone who gets surgery based on their interaction with HRN has a financial stake in this forum. 

What do you mean?

I only use/used HRN to view the results of certain doctors I was considering, and also to provide advice/analysis to patients who so desire it.

[asterix0]

54 minutes ago, HappyMan2021 said:

After being on this forum for over 3 years now, and being a veteran hair transplant recipient, its very easy for me to filter through the "noise" and use common sense and not be naive when it comes to this forum. 

But I do worry about first time or brand new visitors who come to this forum (or any hair transplant forum) and take everything at face value. I'm sure there is a significant amount of people who only come here to look at the recommended surgeons and don't question anything. 

Regarding Dr. Diep - there have been an alarming # of cases over the last 2 years where patients have clearly been botched. Bad angles, scarring, questionable implantation and donor techniques. 

Not even just technique wise, but he has become ethically questionable as well. He operated and severely botched a 21 yr old patient, who paid 15k to be botched to boot. 

If Diep remains on the recommended list, I am very curious what the threshold is for removing someone from the list, because a track record of botched cases, including the badly botched 21 yr old, is evidently and perplexingly not enough. 

To clarify, do I think Dr.Diep should be recommended? No.

But a doctor I was considering, and had a flight booked to Madrid to see, Dr. Lorenzo, I probably would have proceeded with, because of his YouTube marketing and higher price tag I assumed even in a worst case scenario I was in good hands.

It is thanks to this forum and some courageous forum members to post their experiences, that I see this would have been a big mistake, as it appears Dr. Lorenzo is resting on his past laurels. But, we know how it is, this condition breeds desperation in men, we are willing to take all kinds of risks to fix this disfiguration that hair loss causes, everyone has a different risk tolerance. For some it is as low as rolling the dice at a hair mill, or with Dr. Diep, or with Dr. Lorenzo, and some will only consider the highest tiers like Dr. Zarev or Dr. Konior.