Making the decision to get a hair transplant of my own wasn’t easy, and without the help and support from friends who have undergone hair transplants themselves, I would have been lost in the process. There was a point when I thought of transplants as only being for people with accessibility to notable doctors, fancy treatments… and, of course, the funds. Episodes of Botched painted a financially devastating picture for me, leaving me discouraged every time I thought about it.
And I had reason to be: hair transplants can be expensive, sometimes costing north of $20,000 or more in the United States, as previously reported by Allure. (That number is, of course, contingent on the severity of one’s hair loss.) That’s where medical tourism comes in—and for hair transplants, Turkey is like Disney World. Many clinics there offer all-inclusive packages that include the procedure (anesthesia, graft harvesting, implanting, etc.), hotels, flights, and more for price in the low to mid four figures; for instance, one such clinic, Smile Hair Clinic, offers all of this for around $3,500. “In Turkey, they have the process pretty streamlined at this point,” says Dr. Bhanusali. “My thing is this: I’m not against people going to Turkey. It’s just that you have to know what you’re getting yourself into. It’s like Russian roulette, and we’ve seen incredible results from some of the places there. To that point, we’ve also seen equally terrifying results.”
Before I made my decision, I had to make sure I was investing in a clinic with a good reputation, excellent doctors and results to show for it. When speaking to Dr. Finney about my vetting process, I learned there was more to look for than just before-and-afters pictures and customer reviews, and that assessing a doctor’s background for legitimacy is an important piece of homework, too. “In dermatology, our training is focused on becoming experts of the hair, skin and nails. That being said, many hair transplant surgeons come from varying backgrounds,” he says.
The first thing you should confirm is if your doctor did a fellowship for hair transplantation, Dr. Finney explains. “Given the disparity in the background of many surgeons, training can vary. I always look at the prior history and what type of doctor they were originally,” he says. “Someone who trained as an ER doc and took a weekend course prior to labeling themself as a hair transplant surgeon would be a red flag for me. The procedure most closely aligns with dermatologists, as well as plastic and facial plastic surgeons.”
