At the recent ISHRS conference, it seems like a lot of talk centered about how popular FUE has become. Add to that the growing popularity of ARTAS, do you guys think that strip will slowly be phased out?
I would prefer to see an end to unskilled physicians performing hair transplants. I see a lot of repair work come through Dr. Cole’s clinic. There really is a science to hair restoration and I think some doctors don’t have an aesthetic sense to begin with. There should be a mandatory two year course for existing doctors to successfully complete before they are allowed by law to be turned loose on the public. A bad hair transplant can damage a man’s life. Some use the word ruin. I should know, my quality of life was personally damaged years ago by unnatural looking work.
The ARTAS robot has a window of opportunity to improve its miss rate, change depth and allow smaller punch sizes. I would prefer a strip surgery in the hands of a good doctor to the ARTAS. I work for an FUE-only clinic.
I see a lot of nasty strip scars, and many of our first-time FUE patients comment on how much easier the procedure was to endure and recover from than their previous strip surgery. Currently, there are good strip doctors who do natural looking work and there are some good FUE doctors. Whether or not a strip scar will widen is somewhat unpredictable. If you scar widens, you will need to spend more time, money, and grafts to enable short haircuts.
I have seen some bad FUE as well. I have seen recent strip work that looked great by a doctor that previously turned out terrible work.
The whole hair transplant industry is really a mixed bag.
I am not a physician and the contents of all of my posts are my opinion and not medical advice.
Probably not, strip is more efficient to perform so it is more lucrative for the doctors, I think.
Yeah, I don’t see strip disappearing as long as the money issue is there.
The cost of any HT work is some of the most expensive cosmetic surgery you can do relative to the visual difference it makes. FUE’s price is unfortunately pretty far off the charts. I can’t really blame the docs when it’s so hard to do well.
If women needed HT work in the large numbers that men do then IMHO this would be a different industry. FUE work would come down in price one way or another. Maybe it would be with machines, maybe vast numbers of decent surgeons and techs performing at least moderately good work, maybe a big thriving safe industry of FUE clinics in cheaper countries just outside the borders of the most prosperous nations . . . . . I don’t know but it would be something.
Women would bring a different attitude to the patient side of the table than men do in general. I don’t see women letting so many HT clinics prey on the vulnerable for generations like we’ve had with men, at least not for a problem as unpreventable & widespread throughout the group as male hair loss. Their mindset is different. They wouldn’t show the same kind of embarrassment about getting work done that men do. They certainly would fight more publicly when an industry is preying on their vulnerabilities.
[quote][postedby]Originally Posted by tembo[/postedby]
At the recent ISHRS conference, it seems like a lot of talk centered about how popular FUE has become. Add to that the growing popularity of ARTAS, do you guys think that strip will slowly be phased out?[/quote]
I can see why there s a lot of talk about FUE/ARTAS, I don’t know if this is true but I read it somewhere that the ARTAS machine cost $200K, many doctors have already invested in the machine, so it makes sense for them to talk it up in order to generate more publicity to help recoup their investment.