Spencer Kobren speaks with IAHRS accepted member Para Mohebi, M.D. about the decline in overall acceptable FUE hair transplant surgery outcomes, and why the field  is taking such an ugly turn. If you are considering hair transplant surgery, remember, if your doctor doesn’t know at least as much about the procedure as their techs, you might want to consider doing more research.

Spencer Kobren: Hey guys, I'm here with IAHRS member, Dr. Parsa Mohebi. We are the Advanced FUE Los Angeles conference. Dr. Mohebi, what do you think about the conference so far?

Dr. Parsa Mohebi: It is a good workshop here. We had a lot of good lectures come, big name doctors. Doctors who are innovators and they are on the top of their technology. In the next two days we're going to have workshops doing the procedures back-to-back. It's going to be very interesting.

Spencer Kobren: I talk a lot about this. A lot of novices getting into FUE, a lot of guys who are buying these turnkey solutions, device manufacturers selling cosmetic and plastic surgeons, really hope, saying that, "Listen, you can make this much money doing hair transplantation, and it's really easy." What do you think it's doing to the industry?

Dr. Parsa Mohebi: This is one of those problems. For instance, we had this lecture about ARTAS procedures, the same concept. People think that just by a machine, can become a hair transplant surgeon. Unfortunately, I have some of my repair cases, a lot of my repair cases, coming from good name plastic surgeons. They do a great job of facelift, but they just don't know how to do hair transplantation. They don't have the system. They feel that just buying the machine will do everything, but it has a lot of artistry, a lot of science behind it, and everything should be going hand-in-hand together.

Spencer Kobren: That's the thing. That's what the device manufacturers are actually trying to sell. Some of them are doing a good job, especially the smaller foot print devices, they're really selling well. The biggest problem is, patients are suffering. I don't see any of these guys who are involved, well most of the guys, in cosmetic surgery at these conferences. I think it's a big problem.

Dr. Parsa Mohebi: Yeah, yeah, that's true.