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Our mission is to recommend only the best hair restoration surgeons to hair loss sufferers worldwide.  Thus we evaluate a hair transplant physician’s experience,  skill,  surgical technique and patient results to see if they meet our high standards for recommendation.  Those performing ultra refined follicular unit hair transplantation are invited to become a highly esteemed member of the Coalition of Independent Hair Restoration Physicians. 

When evaluating clinics we live by the Old Russian proverb “Trust by Verify”. That’s why in addition to evaluating surgical techniques and real patient feedback and photos on our forum, Pat Hennessey, Publisher of the Hair Transplant Network travels frequently in “Hair Force One” visiting leading clinics worldwide. By observing live surgery, examining their techniques, and meeting with their patients, he can accurately evaluate their level of experience and skill in producing quality results. To learn more about why we visit clinics, visit “The Value of Visiting Clinics”.

A few months ago, Pat was in Arizona and visited with Coalition member Dr. Sharon Keene and observed her perform live surgery.

Dr. Keene has been recommended on the Hair Transplant Network for years and is a highly esteemed member of the Coalition.  To see Pat’s detailed review and observations of Dr. Keene in live surgery including live surgical photos, view “Visit to Dr. Sharon Keene’s Clinic – Physician’s Hair Institute“.

To see the highlights of his visits to dozens of other leading clinics worldwide, visit our “Visits to Leading Hair Transplant Clinics” forum.

I’ve known Dr. Sharon Keene for over ten years and first saw her perform hair transplant surgery when she was working with Dr. Ron Shapiro in his clinic in Minnesota several years ago.  She has always impressed me as being very meticulous, dedicated and caring.

She has been recommended on the Hair Transplant Network for over ten years and is a member of the Coalition of Independent Hair Restoration Physicians. She has consistently garnered rave reviews from her patients, who often comment on our dedication and caring nature.

To view her recommendation and patient photos, view her physician profile.

Just recently I had the pleasure of watching Dr. Keene and her staff perform an ultra refined hair transplantation at her full time office in Tucson, Arizona. It was obvious that she’s only gotten better with time. She continues to be very hands on and places many of the grafts herself. She is a stickler for quality control and feels she can monitor the process from A to Z best by working along side her medical technicians during the entire process.

Though she once did all pure follicular units, she now likes to use a limited amount of double follicular units (two follicular units that are very close together) when appropriate. She believes that this gives the patient the best illusion of density, while still maintaining complete naturalness, even under close inspection. She also feels that the careful use of some multi follicular unit grafts in the midscalp region also gives her patients the best financial value. I tend to agree that it is best not to be bound by pure follicular unit dogma.

During 2008, despite three lawsuits attempting to suppress free speech on our hair loss forum, we prevailed and our members continue to share their honest opinions and experiences. The “free speech” we enjoy on our forum is far from free. Our legal costs for 2008 were over $100,000.

As much as we dislike paying attorneys, we’d rather pay them than give into legal intimidation and delete true but unfavorable posts or allow hair restoration physicians with poor results to be presented on our community.

While other forums have caved into such legal intimidation (click here for details), we think the integrity of our community is worth paying a high price to maintain.  The other two lawsuits have been dismissed and are thus no longer pending. We will also continue to protect our forum community from covert marketing (see “Free Hair Transplants for Posting”).

On a lighter note, we celebrated the ten year anniversary of the Hair Transplant Network this past September during the annual ISHRS physicians meeting held in Montreal. Leading physicians and patients attended our ten year anniversary party. For highlights and photos from the party, view the “Ten Year Anniversary of the Hair Transplant Network”. To view highlights from the annual ISHRS scientific meeting, click here.

This past year we carefully reviewed and added seven physicians to our recommended list, while removing five physicians who we believe no longer met our high standards for recommendation. To learn more about how physicians are selected, visit How we recommend Hair Transplant Physicians.

Physicians recommended on the Hair Transplant Network must meet and maintain our high level of membership standards to keep their recommendation status. As part of our regular review process, Pat Hennessey visits with and observes these leading clinics in live surgery.  See Pat’s Visits to Leading Hair Transplant Clinics.

Recently, we’ve asked physicians to provide hair transplant photo updates of patients Pat observed in live surgery. In addition to the updates we received from Dr. Farjo (updates presented on this hair loss forum thread) so far, we’ve received updates from the elite Dr. Ron Shapiro, Dr. Glenn Charles, and Dr. Alan Feller.

We invite you to see these hair restoration patient result photos and offer your feedback.

Photo Album of Pat’s visit to Dr. Feller
Photo Album of Pat’s visit to Dr. Charles
Photo Album of Pat’s visit to Dr. Shapiro

These three surgeons continue to do ultra refined work with a high consistency of excellent results.

Bill – aka Falceros
Associate Publisher of the Hair Transplant Network and the Hair Loss Learning Center
View my Hair Loss Weblog

Technorati Tags: hair transplant, hair restoration

During the summer of 2007, Pat Hennessey, Publisher of the Hair Transplant Network had the privilege of visiting with and observed both Dr. Bessam and Nilofer Farjo perform two excellent and ultra refined hair transplant surgeries over a period of 2 days. To see the highlights of Pat’s tour of the Farjo Clinic and other leading clinics in Europe, visit “Tour of Leading Clinics in Europe – Spring 2007“.

Mick McHugh, the patient coordinator of the Farjo Clinic recently sent Pat the one year hair restoration results from one of the patients he observed. To see these impressive results, visit Photos from May Visit to the Farjo Clinic in Manchester, England. We invite you to see this patient’s one year results. Mick intends to take the photos of the other patient’s one year results in the near future.

In our opinion, the work the Farjo clinic is now performing is on par with the very best hair restoration clinics in North America.

Bill – aka Falceros
Associate Publisher of the Hair Transplant Network and the Hair Loss Learning Center
View my Hair Loss Weblog

Technorati Tags: hair transplant, Farjo Clinic, hair restoration

At the Hair Transplant Network, only those surgeons who perform state of the art hair transplant surgery with excellent results are recommended.

Recently, we asked the patient members of our hair restoration forum community for their input Dr. Brandon Ross of LaJolla, CA.  View Dr. Ross’ featured potential recommendation forum thread here.

Dr. Ross, recently visited and observed in live surgery by Pat Hennessey – Publisher of the Hair Transplant Network, has over 8 years of hair transplant experience and performs regular large sessions of high quality follicular unit hair transplantation with excellent results. Pat was very impressed with his level of patient care, his staff, and the quality of their work.  See the highlights from Pat’s visit to his clinic in LaJolla, CA.

Given his extensive experience, and positive remarks made by our hair loss forum members, it is no surprise that Dr. Brandon Ross has been approved for recommendation by our online hair restoration community. To see his recommendation profile, click here.

Feel free to congratulate Dr. Ross by clicking on his potential recommendation thread above.

To see our high standards for recommendation, click here. To see a full list of all surgeons we recommend, click here.

Bill – aka Falceros
Associate Publisher of the Hair Transplant Network and the Hair Loss Learning Center
View my Hair Loss Weblog
 

Technorati Tags: hair transplant, Dr. Ross, Hair Transplant Network, follicular unit hair transplantation

When it comes to evaluating hair transplant clinics, we like to live by the old Russian Proverb “Trust but Verify”.

 

That’s why in addition to evaluating surgical techniques and real patient feedback and photos on our hair loss forum, Pat Hennessey, Publisher of the Hair Transplant Network believes in visiting clinics worldwide.  By observing live surgery, examining their techniques, and meeting with their patients, he can accurately evaluate their level of experience and skill in producing quality results.

 

On a mission to recommend only the best surgeons to hair loss sufferers worldwide, Pat has been traveling across North America this past year in “Hair Force One” visiting leading hair restoration clinics. This past May he was in California.

 

Despite Southern California’s reputation for beautiful people, there are a surprisingly limited number of truly world class hair transplant physicians.  But after extensive research, Pat found and visited a handful of potentially promising surgeons who appear to use state of the art techniques. 

 

To see Pat’s detailed review of each clinic he visited in Southern California including live surgical photos, visit “Southern California – Visits to Leading Hair Transplant Clinics”

 

Pat also visited with a few promising clinics in Northern California.  To see highlights from Pat’s visit including a detailed review with hair transplant photos, visit Pat’s Visit to Leading Clinics in the San Francisco Bay

 

Dr. Kabaker has been recommended on the Hair Transplant Network for several years. View his profile – on the Hair Transplant Network.

Dr. Sheldon Kabaker is renowned among hair restoration physicians for his superb surgical skill, which he developed and refined over the past thirty years.

During my visit he and his staff performed a small session of 1,100 grafts into a patient’s crown area. Dr. Kabaker removed the donor strip using a single bladed knife and then did a double layer closure so that the internal sutures would reduce tension on the skin level external sutures. He believes this produces a minimal donor scar. He then used a 19 gauge needle to create graft incisions of about 0.9 millimeters in size.

In addition to the quality follicular unit grafting that he performs, Dr. Kabaker has developed a reputation for being an expert at female hairline lowering, below is an example.

This can be a cost effective surgical solution for women who have naturally high hairline that they want lowered. Many women feel that the high hairline makes them look masculine or older.This is not due to hair loss but rather their heredity.

Although transplanting hair to recreate a lower hairline is an option, such transplantation normally requires multiple sessions to create a hairline that is sufficiently dense.

It is vital for hair loss sufferers seeking hair replacement surgery to select a surgeon with a proven track record of performing high quality hair transplantation and a reputation for satisfying their patients. 

This is why at the Hair Transplant Network, only those hair restoration physians who meet our high level of membership standards are recommended.  An elite group of hair transplant surgeons who perform regular larger sessions of ultra refined follicular unit hair transplantation are elligible for the Coalition of Independent Hair Restoration Physicians.  To see our coalition membership standards click here.

Recently, Pat Hennessy, the Publisher of our online hair transplant community, visited with Dr. Gabel of Portland, Oregon to observe his ultra refined follicular unit surgery. It was evident that Dr. Gabel performs high quality ultra refined follicular unit grafting at a reasonable cost. As a physician recommended on the Hair Transplant Network, Dr. Gabel also earned a strong reputation on our hair restoration forum for outstanding results.

To see the highlights of Pat’s visit, see the following hair restoration forum thread: Visit to Dr. Gabel’s Hair Transplant Clinic in Portland, Oregon.

After careful consideration and input from members of our hair restoration discussion forum community, we have granted Dr. Gabel membership into the elite the Coalition of Independent Hair Restoration Physicians. You can view Dr. Gabel’s technique, results, and comments at “Potential Coalition Membership for Dr. Gabel of Portland”.

If you are a hair loss sufferer considering hair replacement surgery and local to Portland, Oregon, we encourage you to at least consult with and consider Dr. Gabel for hair transplant surgery.

Over the past few years that Dr. Steve Gabel has been recommended on the Hair Transplant Network, I have gotten to know him and his ultra refined work. I have come to regard him as being highly ethical and a likable straight shooter who works hard to provide his patients with excellent hair transplant results at modest cost.

So I was not surprised to find while visiting his hair restoration clinic that he and his staffs’ truly ultra refined hair transplant procedure was outstanding from start to finish.

I also had the opportunity to see a few of his hair transplant patients in person and their results were very natural. These patients were very pleased with their results and their entire experience. To view their before and after photos visit our hair restoration forum.

I was very impressed with the great attention to detail and care that Dr. Gabel and his staff showed at every step of the procedure.

Dr. Gabel took ample time to carefully remove the donor strip in sections in order to avoid follicle transection (severing follicles) and any damage to the underlying tissue, blood vessels and nerves. He adopted this careful donor strip removal from the expert surgeon Dr. Ray Konior of Chicago.

Dr. Gabel then performed a trichophytic closure that included using subcutaneous sutures (internal sutures in the tissue under the skin). These internal sutures pull the underlying tissues beneath the skin together so that the second external running suture simply closes the skin with minimal tension. Since tension is a leading factor in scarring, the low tension on the scalp’s skin consistently produces pencil thin donor scars.