I want to tell you about my hair transplant

I ended up having the operation and have been very happy. You will be pleased to know Dr. Rassman that my doctor showed me your 2003 paper initially describing FUE (as he knew I was also in academic medicine). He certainly has a great deal of respect for you. On the other hand, I would not be surprised if on average his results might be slightly better, as he was the only person who touched my scalp. I’m sure that your technicians are well trained, but my doctor only uses a manual punch and has been doing the procedure for 14 years this same way. He also splits the procedure up into 500 grafts at a time, such that the grafts are sitting outside the scalp for a minimal time compared to doing them all at once. I had about 30-40% of my grafts, start growing immediately.

Thanks for the nice comments. When I started doing hair transplants, I did it all myself, but as the number of grafts got larger (2000, 3000, 4000 and then 5000 grafts per session), it was impossible for me to do all of the work so I trained technicians whose sole function is to manage the grafts and then place them. At one time, I set the speed and quality standard, but as the team of technicians got better and better and did it full time, they eventually surpassed my speed with equivalent quality. My invention of FUE waas a milestone; however, technology has changed and we have changed with the evolving technology so that the quality of our grafts are now better than back in 2003 when I published the first article on it.  Now we can perform up to 3000 FUE grafts in a single day in under 7 hours so the time the grafts are out of the body is minimal. There are excellent studies showing that as long as the grafts are placed within 8 hours, cooled and placed in a good preserving solution, that graft growth is equal to immediate placement. A few of our patients grow immediately (about 5%), but most patients shed the hairs. Usually, there is a lag time between the time the hairs shed (2-8 weeks) and the time the new hair grows (3-8 months). If for any reason, there is an overlap between the two, pay no attention to it for when the new hair grows, the old hairs from the grafts that may persist beyond 8 weeks, will eventually shed.

Sounds like you found an excellent doctor who you have faith in and have developed a wonderful relationship with. That is 99% of the battle.