Technique Development and Badmouthing of Doctors

Hello doctor Rassman,

with all the shady HT docs out there you seem to have a very good record of ethics; but recently I came across the first negative “report” that i’ve ever seen about you.

Quote

“Bobby Limmer presented FU style grafting in 1989. It took 10 years to gain a foothold even though it was clearly better. During this time there was an active movement by the practitioners in the industry to badmouth and prevent the adoption of this new technique. That’s right they were actively stopping the evolution of technique. If a patient asked about these techniques they’d be told false and baseless statistics about transection, etc. if they were lucky. If they were unlucky the doctors wouldn’t even present the option to them. Documented examples of this exist online.

“FUE grafting encountered the same resistance from the industry. Every trailblazing FUE practitioner has had false claims and allegations made against their results. Leading this badmouth charge was William Rassman from NHI. Dr. Woods has recorded evidence of this.

In fact FUE was known by the industry for several years and you couldn’t get any of the top clinics to admit its existence.”

Care to comment?

I originated many of the techniques done today (see medical publications) including the follicular unit extraction (FUE). Dr. Woods and I seem to have evolved it simultaneously, but I published the technique in 2001 and he kept his technique secret. In fact, I am still not sure just what he does, technique wise. I have taken lumps on my head as other doctors badmouthed me in the early 1990s, but after my patients got out to the market, the great results seemed to quiet down the accusations made against me. In 1994, I presented 23 patients with completed results to a group of about 500 hair transplant surgeons at an ISHRS meeting in Las Vegas. I would say that 95% of the doctors at that meeting were doing the old plug technique at the time. I did my presentation with live patients and compared what I did with the poor photography shown at the meeting by other doctors. My patient models spoke reams about the techniques I used, and that meeting seemed to be the actual end of the plugs as the standard of care.

I have been an outspoken critic of misrepresentations by doctors about their skills and techniques. After I announced FUE to the world, one doctor called me to ask how it is done. He had never done anything like it before. Within the week, he announced (over the internet) about the FUE technique he invented and his wonderful results from it. Now, when I meet that doctor I want to puke.

Nobody is without criticism and I am sure that some patients may not have reached their expectations with me as their surgeon, but setting up expectations is what I do and then the surgery is just a fulfillment of meeting those expectations. I show patients off every month at my office in Los Angeles and the experience of sharing has been central to my entire practice strategy.