Recommendations for Doctors Who Specialize in FUE in The NY/NJ Tri-State Area

[Balding Bad]

Hey everyone,

Still relatively new to this board and to my research in general, but was wondering if anyone had any recommendations for reputable and reliable HT doctors who specialize in FUE in the New York, New Jersey or Connecticut area. Just from browsing on this forum I gather that Hassan and Wong are pretty amazing, but unfortunately for me they are located in Vancouver, which would be quite the trek for me.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

[Valerie]

I am not sure who is the best in your area - but definitely consider the ARTAS for your FUE procedure. I wouldn't go to an FUE doc that doesn't do ARTAS for FUE. At our office we have found that the ARTAS provides the best success rate of grafts surviving. Good Luck!

[John P. Cole, MD]

Valerie, the only physicians who own an ARTAS are the ones who have poor hands and can't do FUE. Over 50% of the grafts are damaged by the ARTAS and the total follicle transection rate will almost always be over 20%. Now, i probably have more FUE experience than anyone in the world. I'd say that the one place you should not go for FUE is any physician who offers the ARTAS.

[Balding Bad]

@Valerie and @drcole, appreciate the suggestion from both of you two, even if you two don't see eye to eye on it I'm happy to look into it myself.

@drcole, so do you recommend that if I were to undergo an FUE procedure to avoid ARTAS and go with someone who manually extracts the follicles themselves?

@Yates Hair Science, is it typical or common of some doctors to reimburse or cover part of the travel expenses or does that really just depend on the doctor? Is that something they do at Dr. Yates?

[John P. Cole, MD]

Robert True does good FUE work in the New York area. He also does good strip work.

My recommendations on FUE are that you find someone who can extract manually because sometimes this is the optimal way to extract grafts. It is not to say that manually driven mechanical extractors cannot do good jobs. They can do great jobs in the right hands. On the other hand, a power tool in the wrong hands can be disastrous. I prefer physicians who regard FUE as the optimal technique and the gold standard of hair transplantation. If they physician is not totally behind the procedure and it's obvious advantages, I cannot imagine them being as good as someone totally devoted to the FUE method.

With regard to FUE, there are three ways it is performed. One is manually. the second is manual mechanical extractors. The third is robotics. Anyone who operates a mechanical extractor really needs to learn manual extraction first to develop the proper feel and the proper angle to perform graft extraction. One of the greatest issues with robotics is that physicians who own the robots have very little personal FUE experience. No two patients are exactly alike. They all have various differences. The method for FUE extraction and the approach to FUE vary by patient. Robotics allows for the least number of variables for the extraction of grafts. The robot does not operate by feel or touch. The robot is not capable of adjusting to instantaneous changes in patient position that occurs with simple things like breathing, stretching, yawning, coughing, or moving.

My personal feeling about FUE is that robotics are the least desirable method and the robot has the highest follicle injury rate or any method on the market. This is not to say that manual and mechanical extractions are always better than the robot across the board when including all physicians. Some physicians do not have the dexterity to operate a manual extraction or mechanical extraction method. In such a physician, robotic extraction would be preferred. However, a physician truly skilled in FUE with a great deal of experience will always out perform the robot in terms of graft quality.

This is why I do not recommend robotic physicians or their practices. Back in 2003 there were only a handful of physicians offering FUE and there were even fewer who felt it was the optimal technique for harvesting grafts. In 2003 I was the only physician in the USA who felt FUE offered clear advantages over strip surgery. The acceptance of FUE has always been more prevalent in Europe and Asia than in the USA. Most physicians in the USA only began to offer FUE more recently. As I predicted 10 years ago, this would occur only when market pressure by patients forced physicians to offer FUE. Some physicians took the time and effort to learn FUE. Others took the easy road to learning FUE. The easy road is one where the physician employs a layman to extract the grafts for him. My feeling is that this group of physicians will some day land in a class action lawsuit by the patients who were operated on my laymen employed by a physician, who could not personally perform FUE. The other easy road is robotics.

Robotics may one day equal the skill set of a talented and experienced physician, but that day is a long way off. My personal belief is that patients deserve the best effort that a physician can give when performing a hair transplant. Robotics simply is not the best effort that a physician can give. This is why I do not own one and this is why I do not recommend robotic surgery to anyone looking into FUE.