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Over eight years ago I had my first of three life changing follicular unit hair transplant sessions with Dr. Ron Shapiro in Minneapolis. Not only did this experience change my life but it also inspired me to ultimately create the Hair Transplant Network and the Hair Restoration Research Discussion Forum. See my story or visit my Weblog.

I was very lucky to have met Dr. Ron Shapiro for many reasons, including that he was way ahead of his time in mastering and teaching follicular unit hair transplantation. I’ve learned a great deal about hair restoration from Dr. Ron Shapiro and to this day he remains my “Gold Standard” for the very best in hair restoration surgical technique.

I have had the opportunity to see him perform surgery on numerous occasions. In my opinion, his artistry, skill and ethics remain unsurpassed. The hair restoration work of Dr. Shapiro and his staff has continually evolved and grown more refined since I first did surgery with him over eight years ago. At that time my first session of 1,450 grafts was considered to be a “mega” session. Today such a session would be considered small.

The Shapiro Medical Group has a large staff of technicians, which enables them to provide patients with the optimal number of grafts that can be safely done in one session. Thus depending on the patient’s donor supply and their needs the Dr. Shapiro and his staff can provide from 1,000 to over 4,000 microscopically prepared follicular unit grafts.

Over the past few years I’ve enjoyed meeting Dr. Arthur Tykocinski at the annual ISHRS hair restoration meetings. I also found his presentations to be very cutting edge and insightful. One such presentation explained how by using smaller and less invasive blades surgeons could make more incisions in a given area with out increasing the overall trauma to the recipient area.

Thus a surgeon could successfully densely pack more grafts hair in a single surgical session. Dr. Tykocinski was really on the cutting edge of the emerging Ultra Refined Follicular Unit Grafting.As young physician Dr. Tykocinski eagerly embraced the newest evolutionary techniques including ultra refined grafting, cut to size custom blades and lateral slits.

When he invited me to see him perform hair transplant surgery in Sao Paulo, Brazil in January of 2005 I decided to make the trip to see what promised to be a truly cutting edge surgery and an interesting country.Arthur opened my eyes and mind to what has become the cutting edge in hair restoration surgery – Ultra Refined Follicular Unit Grafting with careful graft orientation. The week I spent watching him in action and talking to him about surgical hair restoration inspired me to overhaul the content of our web sites and raise the standards for membership in the Coalition of Independent Hair Restoration Physicians to require that members successfully perform this cutting edge ultra refined procedure.