Paradox - "repair producing" doctors but authoring repair resources

[mavigo]

So I was browsing through the internet, reading articles and posts about HT repair cases and I found this one doctor; Martinick, with a lot of good reading material: 

https://www.martinickhair.com.au/_blog/Martinick_Hair_News/post/how-to-avoid-regretting-your-hair-transplant

Like listening to a preacher, I found my self emphatically thinking "YES! YES! YES!" to many of her points in the above article and others on her page.

So then I thought, hmm... I'll search her name on here and see what comes up. 

Well... I'll let you guys be the judge of that. 

But this is one of many times in this minefield medical subspecialty where my research led to me to a lot of good educational materials about repairs, only to discover that the physician author is likely a main source of repair patients. 

Kind of like a "do as I say, not as I do" type thing. Or listen to me and don't come see me. 

Anyone else picked up on this? 

[NegativeNorwood]

That crook knows what she's doing and does it anyway. Sadly, it's common.

All doctors are the best in the world if you ask them. Only trust high resolution, honest pictures of their work. No good pictures? Run, as fast as you can, regarldess of price, reputation and apparently "ethical" speech. 

Good, honest pics with close ups = everything.

Edited April 19, 2023 by NegativeNorwood

[Melvin- Admin]

There’s know-how, and then there’s capability. A surgeon may know how, but not have the ability. This is why independent reviews are so important. They separate the wheat from the chaff.

 

[Rafael Manelli]

She may as well have said “If the patient is smart he will avoid clinics with poor quality photos such as ours. If he fails this test, he deserves whatever result he gets”

[mavigo]

@NegativeNorwood @Melvin- Moderator @Rafael Manelli Ironically this piece of advice was the one I blew off, verified licenses, educations everything but got the result I should've seen coming.

My second time around, ALL I did was review pictures and didn't waste time on anything else. I also had thick stress goggles on, I was working full time and a full time student. Never make major decisions while under duress. 

However, MY in detail photos of the aftermath are plastered on the internet and I hope more patients will come forward from my original doctor or any doctor that preys on the ill informed. What they fear the most is the truth coming out and as they say, a before & after picture is worth a thousand words! 

[Rafael Manelli]

3 minutes ago, mavigo said:

@NegativeNorwood @Melvin- Moderator @Rafael Manelli Ironically this piece of advice was the one I blew off, verified licenses, educations everything but got the result I should've seen coming.

My second time around, ALL I did was review pictures and didn't waste time on anything else. I also had thick stress goggles on, I was working full time and a full time student. Never make major decisions while under duress. 

However, MY in detail photos of the aftermath are plastered on the internet and I hope more patients will come forward from my original doctor or any doctor that preys on the ill informed. What they fear the most is the truth coming out and as they say, a before & after picture is worth a thousand words! 

We need more vocal unhappy patients to speak up with evidence.

Every time a botched patient posts their results, a dirtbag doctor malds. 

[mavigo]

33 minutes ago, Rafael Manelli said:

She may as well have said “If the patient is smart he will avoid clinics with poor quality photos such as ours. If he fails this test, he deserves whatever result he gets”

You're a stone cold dude. I wouldn't say anyone nor I deserved this. How was I supposed to know I need to go onto lesser known forums to find the truth? Most people don't get cosmetic procedures like this.

My main source of information was youtubers like JT (who I really despise now) and with him being a major repair patient; no wonder I followed in his shoes. 

You wanna know how I found this forum? Holt boy, the guy who screwed me up. When I was digging through the Holt Restoration website; I found a link to here. And was horrified to see old threads exposing him for running a chopshop. 

It's not like when you research hair transplant, all resources send you to HRN. I stumbled upon this place and it was a great thing because I found my repair doctor here and avoided ending up at one of these "repair" doctors. Writing articles about repairs while producing repairs. 

[Rafael Manelli]

1 minute ago, mavigo said:

You're a stone cold dude. I wouldn't say anyone nor I deserved this. How was I supposed to know I need to go onto lesser known forums to find the truth? Most people don't get cosmetic procedures like this.

My main source of information was youtubers like JT (who I really despise now) and with him being a major repair patient; no wonder I followed in his shoes. 

You wanna know how I found this forum? Holt boy, the guy who screwed me up. When I was digging through the Holt Restoration website; I found a link to here. And was horrified to see old threads exposing him for running a chopshop. 

It's not like when you research hair transplant, all resources send you to HRN. I stumbled upon this place and it was a great thing because I found my repair doctor here and avoided ending up at one of these "repair" doctors. Writing articles about repairs while producing repairs. 

Oh I'm not saying you deserve it

I'm saying that's basically what this doctor's saying in her website. Some docs are basically con artists, they'll talk the talk but won't walk the walk. Many of them know they're deceiving their patients and producing bad results, and just don't seem to care. 

[mavigo]

@Melvin- Moderator I don't want to open up old wounds but a bit back, I had a friend in L.A. who was seeing a doctor; Benham, who's brother is an HT surgeon. He was convinced by the marketing he was pretty good, consulted and ready to go. Needless to say, I found your story and I had my friend change course REALLY quick. It can happen really easily. My close friends knew I was getting HT but none of them would've known to step in like I did for my friend. 

@Rafael Manelli Exactly, these chopshop & mill doctors DEPEND on patients to be ill informed to fall for their "services". It's like parasitic relationship. Why have you go straight to a good doctor when they can take a cut (literally & figuratively) and THEN you can go to the doctor you originally should have seen. It's a win for both doctors but a definitely a lose for us sorry dudes. 

 

Edited April 19, 2023 by mavigo

[mavigo]

9 minutes ago, Rafael Manelli said:

Oh I'm not saying you deserve it

I'm saying that's basically what this doctor's saying in her website. Some docs are basically con artists, they'll talk the talk but won't walk the walk. Many of them know they're deceiving their patients and producing bad results, and just don't seem to care. 

I would go as far as to say the majority of HT docs 51 - 60% are cons, that rely on marketing and internet review "control" services like birdeye (like my first doctor does) to dupe patients into their office. From what I've seen most doctors are like this.

The most esteemed doctors don't need such services. Their patient reviews have their schedules booked out 6 months to many years in advance. 

There's an HT doctor walking distance from the house I grew up at. There's probably 50+ HT doctors in my home state. Aside from the one I fell for, I wouldn't go to ANY of them!!!

Even California is saturated with HT doctors but only a handful are actually good. How do all these doctors stay in business? Suckers like me. 

I'll also say that I believe in karma and I'll leave it at that. 

[Rafael Manelli]

3 hours ago, mavigo said:

My main source of information was youtubers like JT (who I really despise now) and with him being a major repair patient; no wonder I followed in his shoes

Why do you despise him?

[bigmistake]

23 hours ago, mavigo said:

You're a stone cold dude. I wouldn't say anyone nor I deserved this. How was I supposed to know I need to go onto lesser known forums to find the truth? Most people don't get cosmetic procedures like this.

My main source of information was youtubers like JT (who I really despise now) and with him being a major repair patient; no wonder I followed in his shoes. 

You wanna know how I found this forum? Holt boy, the guy who screwed me up. When I was digging through the Holt Restoration website; I found a link to here. And was horrified to see old threads exposing him for running a chopshop. 

It's not like when you research hair transplant, all resources send you to HRN. I stumbled upon this place and it was a great thing because I found my repair doctor here and avoided ending up at one of these "repair" doctors. Writing articles about repairs while producing repairs. 

Can you please further talk about why you despise JT ? I find some of his YouTube videos to be very informative on speaking to him, he is always forthright. I am in need of repair, any information shared would be appreciated and may guide my repair procedure. You can DM if you don't want to discuss this publicly.

[Al - Moderator]

This type of thing happened to me way back in the late 80's and early 90's. The clinic I went to lied to me about almost everything and totally butchered me and had people performing surgeries who claimed they were Drs but weren't. At the same time, the State was using them as an expert witness against other "bad" clinics that the State was suing for illegally performing certain hair transplant and hair implant procedures.

 

 

[Melvin- Admin]

On 4/22/2023 at 4:54 AM, BeHappy said:

This type of thing happened to me way back in the late 80's and early 90's. The clinic I went to lied to me about almost everything and totally butchered me and had people performing surgeries who claimed they were Drs but weren't. At the same time, the State was using them as an expert witness against other "bad" clinics that the State was suing for illegally performing certain hair transplant and hair implant procedures.

 

 

Would you ever be willing to do a podcast? I feel like you and @Gatsbyhave so much knowledge on how things were in the 80s. In a sense, we’re lucky. Most botched patients today have no idea how it was in the 80s, with all the flap procedures and scalp reductions that left patients unrepairable and scarred. 

[Gatsby]

On 4/19/2023 at 6:56 PM, mavigo said:

So I was browsing through the internet, reading articles and posts about HT repair cases and I found this one doctor; Martinick, with a lot of good reading material: 

https://www.martinickhair.com.au/_blog/Martinick_Hair_News/post/how-to-avoid-regretting-your-hair-transplant

Like listening to a preacher, I found my self emphatically thinking "YES! YES! YES!" to many of her points in the above article and others on her page.

So then I thought, hmm... I'll search her name on here and see what comes up. 

Well... I'll let you guys be the judge of that. 

But this is one of many times in this minefield medical subspecialty where my research led to me to a lot of good educational materials about repairs, only to discover that the physician author is likely a main source of repair patients. 

Kind of like a "do as I say, not as I do" type thing. Or listen to me and don't come see me. 

Anyone else picked up on this? 

I have had a consultation with Dr Martinick. During the consultation she never made eye contact. She took phone calls and spoke over me and didn't answer my questions. Have a look at the gallery of results. Notice the lighting of before and after pics are poor? Notice the majority of patients only had 1,500 - 2,000 grafts? Others were 3,000 grafts (there is one that says 6,000 but I highly doubt it) maximum? I know she has accepted patients who were never candidates. She would have accepted me FFS! Here in Australia she is considered an 'elite' hair transplant surgeon and is near the end of her career age wise. She's on the board of the AHRS here and has won awards. That's how bad it is in Australia. It's been like this for nearly 50 years. The only thing that has changed is that instead of being butchered with plugs, juri flaps and scalp reductions you will be butchered by FUT and FUE.

[Dillpickle123]

There seems to be a good market in Australia for ht I wonder why there’s never been a good one? Haha the day there is they’ll get all the business 

[Gatsby]

The only good one was the original who performed the first hair transplant in Australia in 1967. Dr Richard Sheill. Even in the days of plugs, etc, he was a gentleman and was responsible for knocking me back when I considered jumping out of the pan and back into the fire in 1990. His words were 'If you offered me one million dollars I wouldn't do it and if I did you would live to regret it.' He was also involved in repairing some of the scars in my donor and removed a couple of plugs that remained after I had the two surgeries from 1985 removed by a plastic surgeon. It was also Dr Sheill's who recommended and helped organize for me to look at wearing a hair piece which I did and as a result I was able to get on with my life.

[mavigo]

@Rafael Manelli 

@bigmistake

1) For hire - I've seen him endorse doctors that have many HRN patented red flags like use of ARTAS, excessive marketing, limited before & after photos, etc. He also made it very clear that he's expensive. 

2) I don't blame him for my outcome but his advice was pretty mediocre. Essentially, verifying that the doctor is real, licenses, boards, reviewing some patient photos if you can. 

I followed everything except the photos part, I didn't really understand plastic surgery. Your school, your hair transplant board affiliations, your license, all of that is ancillary and of least importance. Photos, photos, photos. Hundreds of photos, countless patients, that's the most important. 

My botch doctor went to a prestigious public ivy school in the Midwest, ISHRS, ABHRS, but he really doesn't share photos. The reason is now blatantly obvious but truthfully, hundreds of nice patient photos are always associated with good schooling, training, experience, licensure, credentials. You won't find amazing before & after photos from a dude off the street. Didn't really look up the creds on my second doctor, just reviewed photos and posts on this forum and got unfiltered experience & advice. 

Guys like him, Matt Dominance, are knowledgeable but I feel like they're trying to profit from their tragedies and are insincere.  

[Dillpickle123]

12 hours ago, Gatsby said:

The only good one was the original who performed the first hair transplant in Australia in 1967. Dr Richard Sheill. Even in the days of plugs, etc, he was a gentleman and was responsible for knocking me back when I considered jumping out of the pan and back into the fire in 1990. His words were 'If you offered me one million dollars I wouldn't do it and if I did you would live to regret it.' He was also involved in repairing some of the scars in my donor and removed a couple of plugs that remained after I had the two surgeries from 1985 removed by a plastic surgeon. It was also Dr Sheill's who recommended and helped organize for me to look at wearing a hair piece which I did and as a result I was able to get on with my life.

Wow thanks for this is good to hear about the history of transplant and that one of the first was indeed very ethical