Will the famous surgeon do your transplant or one of his associates?

[Moosegel]

I have noticed that there are a few doctors who have developed a reputation on these transplant websites as being among the very best. But I have also noticed that when you contact these doctors’ clinics, your questions are answered by a different doctor, or perhaps just a technician or salesperson whose job it is to answer internet inquiries.

I have seen price lists on a few doctors’ websites and apparently it is a lot more expensive to have your transplant done by the famous doctor (the one who does celebrities' transplants), and less money to use one of their “associates” at the clinic. Is that correct?

So what do you get if your surgery is performed at a big name doctor’s clinic, but not by the famous doctor, rather by a different doctor?

Will the surgery be of the same high caliber? Is the associate a person who has been carefully trained by the famous doctor and so is just as skilled? Or maybe some mediocre doctor that the famous doctor hired to work on the cheap?