Spencer Kobren speaks with TBT’s undercover doc about the dark underbelly of the hair transplant industry.  Is your hair transplant “surgeon” breaking the law and putting patients at risk? Apparently that is a matter up for interpretation according to many cosmetic surgeons now offering hair transplant surgery in their practices.  

Undercover Doc: The problem with FUE though isn't just the results, whether they're better or worse than strip, the problem is really the way it's being done, the way it's being sold and the way it's being done. What can be done about it, is a bigger question.

Spencer Kobren:  I think the bottom line is doing what we're doing, guys like yourself coming out, talking about what happens behind the scenes, educating the patient, getting this information out there through social media and online and other resources and through our resources. Honestly, we have to get to the point where doctors will become irrelevant unless they start to do the right thing. There are ways to make that happen.

The problem is, the vast majority of you guys, the guys in the field, are members of the ISHRS. You guys all depend on this organization to help you to get things done and potentially set the standard for the field and you know how that's gone. This is a completely impotent organization. I don't know if you agree with that, but it really doesn't seem, in my mind, especially when I see what's happening behind the scenes, that as an organization, that they really have the patient's best interest in mind. If they did, they could have taken a stand. They could have really educated the consumer. They could have put their own necks on the line, like I do, to tell the truth about what's happening. They could remove people from their organization who are doing fucked up things, who are doing stuff that's illegal, but they refuse to do that.

Undercover Doc: Right. Right. Well, yeah, until these people that think that it's within their parameters to redefine the practice of medicine and surgery in their office, they think they're going to get away with it, they'll continue to take the money, as long as they can. The reality is, if they could be stopped, or the technicians that are really risking their ... they go to jail on a felony, if they want to continue to risk that ... If they weren't in the picture ... or if they'd be put in their place, so to speak, the doctors who really can do this procedure would have an opportunity.

Because, when you think about it, say a young doctor, 30 years old, discovers that he's actually good enough for the chance to do this type of microsurgery, and then there's two of them, supply and demand will mean that he'll be the one that should get the patients, if these rogues weren't there doing it illegally.

Spencer Kobren: I agree 100%. The truth of the matter is, if the ISHRS would come to the table and really be open to affecting change, it could happen like that.