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» John, welcome to the real world. Where the giant food processors poison
» you slowly, corporate America openly steals your money, politicians do
» what’s best for themselves and not the country, the media slowly conditions
» you, medicine gives you false hope and steals your money, and the list goes
» on. It’s not so bad when you know the truth, live and learn.
»
» There’s always a better solution right around the corner, it’s just a
» matter of waiting for it.
The most respected surgeon Dr. William Rassman, Hair Transplant Surgeon, Medical Director at New Hair Institute in an interview said:
“The industry itself has not been known for its good quality work in the past, nor its ethics. The industry has been laden down with a sleaze factor to a high degree.”
"…unfortunately, over the past 30 years a lot of the doctors have done a great deal of harm in the hair transplant business. "
http://www.thebaldman.com/Interview_rassman.htm
Nothing has changed since then.
NBC “DATELINE” Reporter CHRIS HANSEN: (Voiceover)
Can they really live up to those promises? Are the claims realistic? Can surgery restore your hair? We decided to investigate, and were surprised by how many men we talked to who felt ripped off and disfigured.
HANSEN: How big is this problem?
Dr. MANNY MERRITT: I don’t want to sound histrionic and tell you it’s of epidemic proportions, but it’s of epidemic proportions.
(From “Splitting Hairs”, the 1997 NBC DATELINE investigation of the Bosley Medical Group.)
The FTC actually threatened to audit the hair transplant industry in the mid-90s, but somehow during a meeting with representative doctors, the doctors talked their way out of an audit. So the people at the FTC already know there are illegal and unethical business practices in the hair transplant business. So my complaint will not come as a total surprise to the people at the FTC,but at least is there.
Also this went to the Senators:
The Honorable SENATOR
EDWARD M. KENNEDY
Chairman
U.S. Senate Committee on Health,
Education, Labor,& Pensions
317 Russell Senate Building
Washington D.C 20510
Dear Senator Kennedy,
I write with serious concerns about Medical Field, the field of Hair Transplant surgery, where INTERVENTION is urgently needed, to prevent further abuses and to protect the public.
The hair transplant industry has a 40-year history, and yet still has no moral compass or code of ethics. Government agencies are unwilling or unable to regulate the industry, and doctors are unwilling or unable to police themselves. So dissatisfied patients must take matters into their own hands. And the public must educate themselves, to protect themselves from these unethical and predatory doctors.
Anyone with a medical degree can legally perform hair transplants without having had ANY specific training. The so-called “established standards of care” for hair transplants are non-existent.
Surgical Hair Transplantation is a billion-dollar industry, which is completely unregulated. Far more than any other medical specialty, the hair transplant industry is notorious for being sleazy and corrupt. The “hair loss business” has always been a magnet for crooks, con men and quacks, and Surgical Hair Transplantation is no different. It works on the principle of generating profit not on the principles that govern the noble profession of a physician which existence the legislator presumed and implemented in the legislation. Illegal sales tactics and unethical behavior are widespread. Patients are routinely lied to, in order to help meet sales quotas. False advertising is commonplace, and some clinics spend millions of dollars each year on deliberately misleading and deceptive advertising.
Patients whose rights were abused, whose surgeon abandoned them in middle of surgery, delegating his duties to non qualified, very often non licensed personnel, because such delegation generates more profit for the surgeon are unable to seek justice in the Courts because Hair Transplant Surgeons have alliance and they are never willing to provide grieved patient with the instrument of affidavit of merit so the patient can start a claim for medical malpractice.
Illegal prescription of the drug Proscar (which is covered under most health care insurance plans),by Hair Transplant surgeons, to substitute the only approved drug for hair loss ,Proscar is so common that is done openly before anyone’s eyes on the web sites. This wide spread practice allows an unlawful advantage that could protect or extend monopoly of certain prescription drug and inhibit competition.
Dear Senator I provide arguments and evidence in my attached memorandum in support of this letter/Petition to you which consists of connected series of statements or propositions, some of which are intended to provide support, justification or evidence for the truth of what I allege.
I believe I speak on behalf of thousands of abused, disfigured, and abandoned patients (“customers”) by this Hair Transplant “Industry” when I say, Dear Senator please do what is in your power to stop this disgrace in this field of elective surgery.
Respectfully Yours,
C.C
United States Senate
Health ,Education,Labor & Pensions COMMITTEE
Democrats by Rank
Edward Kennedy (MA)
Christopher Dodd (CT)
Tom Harkin (IA)
Barbara A. Mikulski (MD)
Jeff Bingaman (NM)
Patty Murray (WA)
Jack Reed (RI)
Hillary Rodham Clinton(NY)
Barack Obama (IL)
Bernard Sanders (I) (VT)
Sherrod Brown (OH)
Republicans by Rank
Michael B. Enzi (WY)
Judd Gregg (NH)
Lamar Alexander (TN)
Richard Burr (NC)
Johnny Isakson (GA)
Lisa Murkowski (AK)
Orrin G. Hatch (UT)
Pat Roberts (KS)
Wayne Allard (CO)
Tom Coburn, M.D. (OK)
United States Senate
Committee on the Judiciary
Edward M. KennedyD-Massachusetts Arlen SpecterRanking Member, R-Pennsylvania
Joseph R. Biden, Jr.D-Delaware Orrin G. HatchR-Utah
Herb KohlD-Wisconsin Charles E. GrassleyR-Iowa
Dianne FeinsteinD-California Jon KylR-Arizona
Russell D. FeingoldD-Wisconsin Jeff SessionsR-Alabama
Charles E. SchumerD-New York Lindsey GrahamR-South Carolina
Richard J. DurbinD-Illinois John CornynR-Texas
Benjamin L. CardinD-Maryland Sam BrownbackR-Kansas
Sheldon WhitehouseD-Rhode Island Tom CoburnR-Oklahoma
MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT OF LETTER/PETITION
TO U.S. SENATE
Non existence of ethic in the HT “Industry”.
It is assertion pertaining to the VAST majority of HT surgeons.(in fact I don’t know of any HT surgeon who does not exercise habitual practices prohibited by law as I will describe here).
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VAST majority of HT surgeons do not personally evaluate the patient sufficiently so they could formulate an appropriate pre-operative diagnosis, VAST majority of HT surgeons use “consultant”, non medical person to do it for them instead. In addition and related to this VAST majority of HT surgeons do not explain pros and cons of HT surgery so patient intelligently can decide about his options (informed consent) and VAST majority of HT surgeons give that to the “consultant” as well.
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VAST majority of HT surgeons do not perform or personally supervise all aspects of the surgery. Including placement of the grafts in the receptor sites. VAST majority of HT surgeons carve the patient, take the strip, suture the wound, make incisions (holes) in patient head and then leave the surgical room and patient and leave the rest to the "surgical technicians”. VAST majority of HT surgeons have in other words, aspects of the surgery outside of their supervision performed or not supervised by another qualified surgeon with the consent of the patient.
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VAST majority of HT surgeons fail to personally perform post-operative medical care. VAST majority of HT surgeons delegate post-operative medical care to a non-qualified medical professional or to a non medical professional at all.
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VAST majority of HT surgeons recklessly delegate medical tasks in violation of the Administrative Codes in their states.
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VAST majority of HT surgeons negligently and recklessly delegate the tasks of selecting the donor site to harvest the hair follicles for transplant in the preceptor site by letting the "surgical technicians” choose the location of the same by shaving and preparing patient just before surgery.
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VAST majority of HT surgeons negligently and recklessly and ILLEGALY delegate the tasks of administering anesthesia to patient to persons not qualified under their state law. (everywhere in USA it is a law only DOCTOR can administer anesthesia)
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Some HT surgeons negligently and recklessly delegate the tasks of preparing the donor grafts, and insertion of the donor grafts into the surgically prepared receptor sites ,with their supervision ,to their "surgical technicians”. VAST majority of HT surgeons negligently and recklessly delegate the tasks of preparing the donor grafts, and insertion of the donor grafts into the surgically prepared receptor sites ,WITHOUT their supervision ,to their "surgical technicians” while they chill outside the surgical room for hours, abandoning the patient in middle of surgery, in violation of their administrative laws of your state.
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VAST majority of HT surgeons have never seen the patient until just before surgery and therefore Lack Informed Consent in Violation of the Law in their state.
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Many HT surgeons have “surgical technicians” engaged in the practice of medicine and surgery without the appropriate certificate from the State Medical Board , in violation of the law in their state.
Violating the laws that protect patient rights has become a habitual rule during hair transplant surgery.
Patients rights are part of human rights and have been defined as 'basic moral guarantees that people allegedly have simply because they are people. Calling these guarantees “rights” suggests that they attach to particular individuals who can invoke them, that they are of high priority, and that compliance with them is mandatory rather than Discretionary.
Patients rights are frequently held to be universal in the sense that all people have and should enjoy them, and to be independent in the sense that they exist and are available as standards of justification and criticism whether or not they are recognized and implemented
Patient’s rights aim to secure for individuals the necessary conditions for getting a minimally acceptable care.
Dear Senator, commonly authorities, that are identified as typically best placed to secure these conditions traditionally were Medical Boards of the States and the Justice System/Courts where the doctrine of patients rights has become, for many, a first port of moral call for determining the basic moral guarantees all of us have a right to expect, primarily, of those capable of directly affecting our most important interests, getting medical care.
I understand, to protect them selves from people who are out here to sue a doctor without merit ,doctors lobby, was successful to push legislature that would shield them from merit less law suits. The law makers and the doctors community agreed to implement the instrument that law requires the filing of an affidavit of merit in a civil suit for medical negligence. In providing an affidavit of merit, a doctor would not be attesting to the truth of the factual events surrounding the surgery. Rather, he would be stating that in his opinion, based upon taking an oral history of the patient, examination of the patient, and review of the patients medical records, it is his opinion within a reasonable degree of medical certainty that the standard of care was breached.
If one reads my previous post one would notice that some described conducts of Hair Transplant Surgeons (by commission and omission) are violations of certain laws (either administrative laws of medical boards or the Law codes of the states).
Most doctors in the HT “industry” unfortunately brake all those things that I mentioned in my previous post, although illegal, they do brake them.
So when one, like for example me, goes to other HT doctors and tells them the story, no HT doctor wants to sign affidavit of merit (because I assume such conducts are epidemic in the HT industry).
Thus, grieved patient, can not even start the law suit, because does not have the element of affidavit of merit from another doctor that the standard of care was breached.
That is why there is not many law suits against hair Transplant surgeons although there is thousands of abused and disfigured grieved patients.
Hair Transplant surgeons protect each other by the simple fact that it is almost impossible to find HT doctor willing to testify against another.
That has been exceedingly successful shield they have against law suits.
Although this is the definition of acceptable standard of care :
The degree of skill and learning ordinarily possessed and used by members of the profession of the medical care provider in good standing, engaged in the same type of practice or specialty in the locality in which he practices or in a similar locality;
So far this definition was interpreted by the lawyers that doctors only determine The degree of skill and learning.
I disagree.
While I agree that The degree of skill and learning ordinarily possessed and used by the doctors is determined statistically(how the majority does it) law provisions delimit certain actions used by doctors (even though if it happens that majority of them does it) as ILLEGAL!
The Law provisions forbidding certain conduct, have supremacy over the Certain forbidden conducts and make them VOID to be considered any kind of care.
They can not be care, they are illegal. Illegal actions are forbidden to be standard. Yet they remain to be in the field of Hair Transplant.
No one ever argued the obvious - that violations of the things that I state above automatically(without the need of expert)makes those violations medical negligence. If any of these elements exist med negligence should be presumed! And the burden should be shifted to defendant to prove how his actions that law delimited forbidden because are considered dangerous for patient, can be in his case considered acceptable care.
So, while I am aware that lack of informed consent is different ground for seeking remedies, as well as unlicensed practice of medicine, battery derived from lack of informed consent, abandoning patient etc are all different grounds in a Law suit (I am aware of that ) I am saying it should be argued this (never argued before but so obvious to me )
By law doctor is required to inform patient about pros cons of surgery so patient intelligently can exercise his choice.
That is the essence of the pre operative care:
By Law doctor can not delegate certain medical tasks (as it is done on epidemic scale) to certain people.
The performance of surgical tasks (can anyone argue otherwise) is the essence of the activities where most of the medical care and skill is exercised on patient! Same for the rest .
So yes doctors do determine” this is common, practice this is not and done by most in our field" as long as does not violate the law.
Dear Senator, you who read this may ask your self…But why? Why would Physicians (lets say some physicians)brake the laws and violate patients rights? Why someone who spent 10 years to become M.D or D.O, highly educated, would brake the laws continually, would violate patients rights continually? What is the MOTIVE?
The motive is, like in any business ,or as they call it now "Industry ",money, profit.
What makes business successful? To be competitive against same entities offering the same services or product on the market, to the consumer.
How does one become and stay competitive?
By making the product or service cost effective so you could offer to the consumer low prices.
And how is that possible related to the Hair Transplant surgery, called now, most appropriately, Industry?
By delegating physicians tasks to non physician, very often non medical personnel.
That is extremely cost effective. One hour of physician time is worth 200 - 400 dollars an hour. One hour of "surgical technician "time is worth 20 - 40 dollars per hour.
So to get more cost effective service/product, the businessman/physician in order to stay in the “business” is forced to delegate more and more tasks that he has duty to perform him self, to “surgical technicians” and “consultants”.
One may say Sir,…but that is illegal. And I believe one would be right right. It is. But who cares .HT “Industry” made a code, Never give a chance victim of malpractice in HT surgery to go to Court and expose the illegal practice.
The legislator presumed that there is no business code ,but rather, medical and ethical code so gave the physicians initial power of determination to decide, was it or not breach to duty of care.
However the paradox now is to stay competitive in the “game”, most surgeons have to do the same thing.
Dear Senator, I am not alone in this view upon this “Industry”.
This is what one of the most respected Hair Transplant surgeons said:
Dr. William Rassman, Hair Transplant Surgeon, Medical Director at New Hair Institute
http://www.thebaldman.com/Interview_rassman.htm
CONTINUES ON MY SECOND POST