donor site	front	front & hairline	front & hairline	top
left side	left side	right side	right side	crown

Bio: I am 40 year old male. I began losing my hair in my late 20's. I have had one hair transplant of 250 grafts...it was performed back in 1996. It was a traditional "strip excision." I believe I am somewhere between a Norwood 3 or 4. I have used minoxidil 5% in the past with decent results in the crown area, but no results in the frontal or hairline area. I am not currently using any hairloss treatments. (I took the pics myself, so it was hard for me to get a good pic of the back (donor area). You might not be able to tell from the pic, but I have a pretty thick donor area (in case Woods needs to know this).

My questions for Dr. Woods:

1). Judging from my pictures, what is the maximum number of grafts I would need to fill in my balding areas (hairline & frontal are my main priorities, followed by the top and crown areas).

2) I understand that you usually spread out your transplant sessions over several days. Given the number of grafts that you believe I would need, how many sessions would it take to complete my hair transplant?

3). I have heard that you are booked up through next year and are not taking appointments at this time. Is this true? If so, when will you start booking future appointments and approximately how long is the wait for the actual surgery?

4). Could you please tell me if the ' Woods Technique' will be available in the United States in the near future? Could you give an "approximate" time frame?

5). How many U.S. Doctors have expressed interest in learning/performing your technique.

6). Many doctors can remove or excise grafts, but as you know, that is only half the battle. It seems that very few can achieve aesthetically pleasing results (i.e. proper placement of grafts into the recipient areas) ...so my question: In addition to teaching (U.S.) doctors your unique excision/extraction technique, will you also train/monitor them for their proficiency in placing the grafts into the recipient area?

7). As you may be well aware, many transplant doctors here in the U.S. don't even do the actual placing of the grafts into the recipient area. They often leave this up to nurses or technicians. Will you require that doctors here in the U.S. who perform your technique do the ENTIRE procedure themselves?

Dr. Campbell & Dr. Woods' Answer

Dear Cris

The optimum that you would need from the photos, giving dense coverage, would be 2 to create the front. 1 for the vertex and 1 for the crown. We try always to overestimate the number of procedures for international patients so that we don’t get into a situation where someone needs an extra procedure and we don’t have the time available. If we feel you need fewer procedures on seeing you, it is no problem as we have a standby list of local patients. This means that there is flexibility which is essential . 4 sessions would be 4 days . Each day we would perform 600grafts of 1, 2 or 3 hair follicular units. They can be done on consecutive days but there can be a break in between if the patient wishes.

We are not booked out for the whole year we are still allocating

We stopped taking appointments more than 5 months in advance as we needed to be able to plan our intended training program and teaching commitments. Patients have been very understanding. Because we deal with people from every kind of occupation and level, we often get requests to reschedule a planned surgery, for example if a board meeting is suddenly called and the patient must attend, Wendy is a master at trying to accommodate and on occasions someone on the stand by list, if available at short notice could have his surgery within weeks.

We hope to begin teaching by mid year

Of the doctors that we have shown, we have had an amazing response. Its not that easy however. There are 10 commandments of care which are essential for patient safety.

The doctors we choose must be perfect. There will be no unfair legal disclaimers to protect doctors against substandard work, so yes we will be heavily involved in quality control. Our doctors when trained may be slower and initially not offer as large sessions and of course there will be different levels of training to deal with for example complicated repair work, but they will not compromise in the excellence of the work.

Our 10 commandments are a contract that we have with each patient, in that is the understanding that the doctor him or herself will perform all of the surgery.

We hope this answers some of your concerns

Angela Campbell and Ray Woods