Dear forum members,

Let's please not turn this thread into a debate about Dr. Epstein. There are enough threads going on about this to discuss INDIVIDUAL cases.

Please keep your thoughts regarding these cases on those threads.

Thanks,

Falc

Come on guys, let's get all warm and cuddly again. We need smiles not scowls. If we could all just join our E hands and praise the world we live in.
Hippy, dippy hey!
Those mean old posters saying stupid things. They need to have firecrackers shoved up their booties.

Yeah, I agree...can't we all get along?

PGP, I didn't mean to imply that after trying to resolve things one on one with the doctor, that was the end of it. Sure, get some input from forum members after that if you're not satisfied, but just give the doc a chance first.

Also, my other concern was that when we get into specifics we're usually only getting one side of the story, unless the doc continuously monitors what's posted and takes time to chime in online. Not a good use of his time and also there is doc/patient confidentiality to be considered.

I do agree tho that problems do tend to get resolved(fairly or unfairly) when a light is shone on it. I just want to be fair when the spotlight is used.

Pat, I didn't mean to volunteer your time in resolving everyones issues with coalition doctors. My earlier point was that if a doctor no longer meets your standards, that you would take action then, after examining the issue thoroughly.

Thats fine PGP and I am for it .. I just think arguing back and forth on threads is a bit much. Most of the time the person has not even contacted the doc prior which is not right..

It's tough to gerneralize of course but this is an information forum not a debating on specific individual case forum.

There are issues that need to be resolved no doubt.Many times if persons where educated prior to the surgery, the issues can be prevented. I am all for that

The problem is, if everytime someone had an issue ( true or not) and brought it up on here, there could be many many problems for everyone involved

[quote]But I personally find it sad that members will base the integrity of this community on the suspension of ONE member's posting privileges.[quote]

It is not about one member. It is about snuffing out anyone who dares criticize any of the Doctors who pay to be part of this website. It is starting to feel like North Korea. I just want honest opinions in preparation for my hair transplant and for the most part this forum offers that better than any other place. BUT, this latest event with NTG2B raises concerns and makes me wonder if some of the opinions that I really need to hear are not getting through to this forum because they reflect negatively on the Doctors and are subject to being deleted or the poster being banned.

You are being watched NW4. Be careful what you say and where you choose to drive. That flicking light on the VCR may actually be you know who.

I think critizing someone publicly who is known to be ethical & have a proven track record is not the bets route to go.. We do not know the situation to the full extent. Every doc on this site no doubt has had a couple instances with unhappy patients.. In some cases maybe the doc is at fault others not.. We have seen it countless times on here when people jump to conclusions.. Things should be handled professionally to avoid judgement too soon

I think when a doc is looking out for a patents best interest and has had a very high percentage of success stories, you should follow the proper course of action first ..

Ultimately this forum is open to all genuine criticism of any and all doctors, recommended or not. Those who have been on this forum long term know this is true.

However, I do encourage patients to first give their physician an opportunity to resolve their issues. This is spelled out on the Coalition Membership Standards page in the physician accountability section below:

quote:

Physician Accountability

Membership in the Coalition requires members to maintain a high degree of patient satisfaction. Members care for their patients knowing that their patients are free to post their experiences on the popular Hair Restoration Discussion Forum. On this open forum patients are free to critique physicians and to hold them accountable for their actions. This forum is run and moderated by hair restoration patients.

In such a transparent environment our members are held publicly accountable for their actions and results. Members who fail to meet the high technical and ethical membership standards set by the Coalition are removed from the group.

However, we ask that patients first give their physician the opportunity to satisfy their concerns privately before posting any public criticisms on the discussion forum.

If the issue is not resolved to the patient’s satisfaction they are encouraged to contact the Coalition by email at service@HairLossLearningCenter.org

Member clinics also agree to open their clinics up to inspection. Many of these inspections have been reported on the Hair Restoration Discussion Forum. View some of these clinic visits .

Regarding NotGoing2GoBald many of his off color comments were considered sexist and racist by some of our forum members. Every week or two Falceros, as the moderator, had to send him a private message asking him to be less offensive. So there were many issues with NotGoing2GoBald that led to his posting privileges being removed.

The removal of NotGoing2GoBald and those who foolishly advocated the boycotting of this forum community does not change our long standing policy of letting the chips fall were they may regardless of the physician. A person need only see the recent controversy mentioned in this topic and others about a respected Coalition doctor to see how painfully true this is.

P.S. Since Recession feels it's getting to be like North Korea around here, could someone email me a photo of the short little North Korean dictator, Mr. Kim, with the outstanding hairline? I'd like to use it for my avatar. Now why is it that dictators seem to have the best hairlines? If I become a tyrant will my hairline thicken?

So did Nervous Nelly get banned from this site for bringing up the topic?
Who is on the banned list?
I see LuckyUK made it on there.
His criticism seemed weak to have led to an outright banning.
Wierd.

I would urge all posters to move past this thread and let it go. I've been here awhile and can tell you there's no hidden agenda by Pat, Falc or anyone else to protect or expose any Doctor in particular.

In my tenure here, I've known both Pat and Falc to be fair-minded guys. We all have a common interest - hair loss and helping to educate and help those who don't like it.

If anyone has a Doc that has performed work on them personally, talk with the Doc and try to resolve it, or, if it can be then post the evidence and let the chips fall where they may.

It's too bad people just can't swallow their pride once in awhile and check the egos at the door. We aren't all going to agree on everything here.......and that's okay, let's just disagree respectfully.

This site and many of the posters here, some still here and some of whom have moved on, has been a tremendous help to me in preventing future hair loss and in my attempt to restore my hair. I'm very thankful to Pat, Falc and the many who have been here to stay the course!

Peace ~

Over the years I have been extremely reluctant to ban anyone and the removal of a forum member has been few and far between.

For the first three years of this forum I never once banned a single member or removed a single post. I replied to every post that I felt was inaccurate, using my reply as my only antidote. As a rather naive journalism major with a fierce belief in the "freedom of the press" I was fiercely anti censorship.

In time a few posters made a virtual hobby out of outright sabatauging the forum on a daily and even hourly basis. Eventually I was spending more than half of my day, every day, running from topic to topic refuting utter nonsense. These posters knew full well that they would never be banned.

These weeds were choking the garden to death and those members who actually cared about helping others began to leave the forum due to the toxicity created by this small band of hard core weeds.

I finally decided that if the forum was going to flourish I needed to be willing to pull out the weeds.

On one day I banned a handful of these persistent weeds and the forum transformed for the better virtually over night and flourished.

We insist that the doctors be held accountable on this forum. Yet forum members need to also be accountable. Some seem to have forgotten this and took their posting privileges as a right to post virtually anything - true or untrue. Some have come on to this and other forums to covertly market physicians for which they received compensation. I believe that both of these behaviors undermine the health and credibility of a forum.

Recently two forum members began advocating a boycott of this forum. These two member's, Nervous Nelly and NoBuzz, had their posting privileges removed by me yesterday as stated previously in this topic.

Chucky and Luck UK also had their posting privileges removed for a number of reasons, but primarily for smearing the Farjo clinic despite clear evidence that this clinic now provides outstanding and ultra refined hair transplantation.

The quality of the Farjo's work was in question and so I flew to England last Spring and spent extensive time in surgery with both Drs. Bessam and Nilofer Farjo to inspect their work. I have no doubt after observing their surgery, patients and getting to know their staff that their current work is on pare with some of the top clinics in North America. I also visited Dr. Roger's clinic but declined to recommend them on the Hair Transplant Network since at that time they were not exclusively using the microscopes. To view the highlights from my visit, click here .

Unfortunately, Chucky and Lucky are representative of a small group of people who seem completely resistant to the facts, including the positive posts made by Farjo patients.

Instead they cling to an outdated and inaccurate perception like a racist who is unwilling to see beyond their own prejudice.

Lucky in particular showed little interest in helping anyone on this forum and did little other than bad mouth and libel the Farjos.

This is a forum for sharing genuine information and dealing in facts, not for spewing libelous and defaming "opinions". For this reason I chose to revoke the posting privileges of Chucky and Lucky UK.

This forum will continue to host genuine posts that show the good, the bad and the ugly about any physician. But it is not a forum for defamation or for lobbying members in an effort to undermine this community.

Just as I'm willing to reject any physician, no matter how agreeable they may be in person, I will also remove a member that undermines the mission of this community to help hair loss sufferers find the best treatments and physicians.

I know that some of you may or may not have had personal connections with these posters. So to those who did I'm sorry for the disruption.

I long ago gave up any illusions about being popular in running this community. Many hair transplant doctors dislike this patient based forum and me for running it. Some in the patient based community also dislike me for running this community. So be it.

Those who find it of value will stick around and those who don't won't.

Now that Falcero is the full time "associate publisher" of this community he has found his own popularity wanning, despite the fact that he spent almost three years posting over 4,000 helpful messages with out one dime.

His excellent character, giving nature and true belief in the work of this patient based community is why I hired him. He remains the 100% straight and honest guy I knew then, yet now I see him being unfairly maligned on other forums. Perhaps I can take solace that it is the nature of publishing this community more than personality that produces such criticisms.

I hope that the members of this community realize that up until yesterday only three or four members have had their posting privileges removed in over a year. Given that dozens of new members register each week, I think that's a record of tolerance.

Wow - I spend a few hours away from the boards and Nervous Nelly, Chucky, Lucky UK and No Buzz are all gone. I'm not liking this trend.

I was drawn to this forum because of the open dialogue and supporting and knowledgeable members, but I get a sense that anyone who posts something bad about coalition doctors or disagree with a recommendation will get banned? I admit, I haven't seen all of the posts (who has time?!) so perhaps some have crossed the line, but it still disturbs me to find so many members disappearing and heading to other sites.

Honestly, I find my time evenly split now between this forum and HLH, whereas a year ago, I was on this site 80% of my 'hair loss' surfing time.

I support the free speech of the fellow sufferers. I also struggled with the recommendation of the Farjo clinic as only a few short years ago they were doing poor work, based upon the photos presented by others. It's sort of like Bosley or MHR all of a sudden changing their procedure to ultra-refined and becoming recommended after a few short years, while other recommended doctors have been perfecting their ultra-refined work for 10+ years. I know who I would put my head into the trust of!

Again - this is just my opinion.

And if you sense that others have some reservation, why not make it so that new recommended members have to post a minimum of 'x' before / after photos per month for the couple of years so that we can truly monitor their performance / consistency. In fact, all doctors should have to post some level of before/after photos.

You visited all clinics at one point to bring them into the coalition, Pat, but what is the procedure to ensure they remain at that same high level? 1 visit a year? 20 before/after photos from patients per year?

Sorry for the long post, but I want the integrity of this site to remain intact.

Dear forum members,

I think it's important for you to read over the entire thread and really understand what Pat and I are saying before drawing wrongful conclusions.

Let me say up front that NOBODY was banned for voicing legitimate experiences, concerns, or opinions and it is certainly not a "trend".

One was banned for disrupting our forum community like a child peeing in a pool (notgoing2gobald), two were banned for orchestrating a "boycott" and strike against us (nobuzz4me and nervousnelly), and two more were removed primarily for leading a small group in an attempt to discredit our hard work despite the evidence before their very eyes (chucky and lucky_uk).

Though we do NOT expect everyone to agree with us and we certainly appreciate constructive criticism which will enable this community and its Publishers to grow, we will not tolerate those who blatantly disregard the work we do and attempt to discredit us. One clearly is an attempt to build while the other is an attempt to destroy.

We work hard to ensure that this patient based community thrives on FACTS. Shall we allow those who muddy the water with a blatant disregards of these facts to run loose amongst us, deceiving newer members and guests who are only just learning about real hair loss solutions? Definitely Not!

This is an educational and supporting resource designed to HELP the hair loss community. Pat and I work hard to ensure that members have all the facts available to them which enables them to make an educated decision. But it becomes confusing to them when regular posters blatantly disregard these facts and fill their heads with false information.

Despite what some may think, those forum members who devote much of their time to give freely back to this community are highly appreciated. You make this community thrive with great success!

Now, I hope we can get back to helping real patients with their hair loss woes!

Best wishes,

Falc

Its hard to decifer what is what now, but i will say it seems you guys are much more concerned w/ defending your site now than you are answering the questions people are posting. Lets get back to normal huh?

I think the site owner has gone too far now. Banning all those members, many of which have been here awhile know was not right.

Where has the integrity of this site gone. I could understand NG2GB being kicked off if after repeat PMs accomplished nothing, but this site exist because of forum members who spend time giving back.

This is not how you repay your supporters. You can't justify this anymore, it has become very transparent where this site has gone now.

Welcome to the land of money.

I am really very upset that two of the most dedicated members of this site, NervousNelly and NoBuzz have been banned.

Because this is an open forum such long standing members should feel they can speak out against both Doctor and Members alike... I remember not to long ago that these two members helped regulate/defend this forum against ALL who threatened it.

I don't have to agree with their choices, but again, this is an open forum and these are two very well respected members.

I know Pat has always been reluctant to ban anyone---so this completely took me off guard, to be honest.

Perhaps a suspension for 3 days or a week is in order for those who run afoul of Pat/Falc? That gives both parties the chance to cool off and rethink things and communicate????

I hope this type of protocol can be added or assimilated into how this site operates. I think it establishes a solid safe-guard against emotional decisions and can work to promote working together as opposed to making enemies.

People like NN and NoBuzz are HARD to come by on these forums. They will be missed in the days to come, I am sure.

Jason

I never even saw this brouhaha nor do I know the details behind this poster being banned. However, while I am not surprised that the poster in question eventually got banned (does the kid good, he posted way too much anyway) he never had a transplant and used the forum as his personal romper room which were strikes against him as well. While his banning has upset a few people (somewhat needlessly it seemed to me at first glance) I also can see their point when I read something like this:

quote:

Chucky and Luck UK also had their posting privileges removed for a number of reasons, but primarily for smearing the Farjo clinic despite clear evidence that this clinic now provides outstanding and ultra refined hair transplantation.

This is where the "freedom of speech" road see that sign that reads "Dead End"

So these two posters disagree with your assessment and they are banned? That makes the forum "clubby" and is exactly what any forum should be not, when certain MD's are "off limits" then the integrity of this forum is non existent.

Might as well call it paid advertising then

Edit to add: Nervous Nelly and nobuzz are banned?

Thats too much, and thats no way to run this forum, gotta add that

Yes

It is sad to see some dedicated members leave. If I look objectively at this maybe one or two of these people actually would be in question but that is not my decision and I certainly understand why ..

Boycotting because of one specific instance is a bit selfish.. We all look at whats wrong with everything and ALWAYS overlook everything that is right. This is typical, look at the news and see how many topics are positive and how many are negative ( 30 to 1 on a good day)

We are here to HELP people and although there are some challenges, focusing on some individual situations does not give reason to "call it off"

This site helps soo many people, lets focus on that. Let's focus on Pat & Bill trying to help people and provide a positive atmosphere for hairloss sufferers..It is not their fault if there are occasions where a small percentage patients have an unfortunate experience.. They cannot control everything, just this site.
There are risks in Hair transplantation, patients need to understand this & not point fingers at this site for having a result which is unfortunate.. Nobody is forcing anyone to go to a specific doctor or have a procedure. In fact if you read closely it is the opposite.

Don't shoot the messenger

I'm going to be busy this week visiting several clinics in the San Fransisco Bay Area and observing their surgeries all day.

I won't have the time to continually repeat what I've already stated on this and other topics.

Those who believe in the value of this community and want to stay and contribute to the process of helping people find the best treatments and doctors are encouraged to do so.

Those who choose to disregard our long standing track record of quality recommendations and openness, are free to leave.

Either way, I know there will be plenty of genuine members on this forum who will help others.

Nervous Nelly's calling for a boycott of this community hardly makes him "one of the most dedicated members" of this community. Those who miss him can find him whining away on any of the other forum communities that have no quality standards, clinic visits or patient input for determining the physicians who are presented.

Pat / Falc,

I'm hoping you'll answer the questions I posted earlier, which are reposted here for convenience:

If you sense that others have some reservation, why not make it so that new recommended Doctors have to post a minimum of 'x' before / after photos per month for a couple of years so that we can truly monitor their performance / consistency. In fact, all doctors should have to post some level of before/after photos.

You visited all clinics at one point to bring them into the coalition, but what is the procedure to ensure they remain at that same high level? 1 visit a year? 20 before/after photos from patients per year?

I'm curious about this. I know you are out visiting what are likely new clinics, but what about the existing clinics?

I know one member got banned for saying he'd only consider a couple of the doctors. I'm not taking anything away from those who you believe are highly qualified, but my honest opinion is that all doctors are not created equally and I know I'd be only considering Shapiro, H&W, Feller, Rahal and... that's about it. The reason? They consistently post impressive results. How else can I form my opinion? You have always said that the proof is in the pudding and the only way I can see proof is with consistently impressive results.

I can't think of the last photos I saw from Aronovitz, Bernstein, Charles, Cooley, Devroye, Dorin, Farjo, Feriduni, Gabel, Griffin, HAber, Keene, Konior, Limmer, Rassman, Reed, Rose, Tessler, True, Tykocinski, Vogel, or Williams...

Anyway, food for thought that I hope you will consider as it will only serve to strengthen the forum.