Recently I visited several hair transplant clinics in Europe that I believed were potentially on pare with the very best clinics in North America. I’m glad to report that some of these European clinics lived up to my best hopes.

In short, hair loss sufferers in the UK and Continental Europe, in my opinion, do not need to fly to North America to get truly world class ultra refined hair transplant results.

Prior to my trip to Europe I did extensive research on hair transplant clinics throughout Europe. Many clinics were immediately scratched off the list of clinics worth considering or visiting based on their use of outdated techniques and poor patient results.

Over the years I have had the benefit of corresponding with many European patients who shared their experiences. These first hand accounts were valuable in identifying those clinics who provided consistently good results.

In general the European patient based discussion forums tended to have a negative opinion of hair transplant clinics and physicians in Spain, Italy, France and Germany, while many patients on these forums suggested traveling to Belgium or the UK to get state of the art hair transplantation. These forums are listed below as resources for those based in Europe who speak Spanish, German, Dutch and French.

Haarweb:
Dutch speaking web forum focused entirely on hair transplantation.

Alopezie:
German language forum about hair transplantation

Doctissimo:
French speaking forum about hair loss and hair transplantation.

Stop Hair Loss Now - This English language site/forum is UK based.

Spanish language Hair Loss Information website http://www.recuperarelpelo.com

Based on my research, I tend to agree that Belgium and the UK seem to have the best hair transplant clinics in Europe, some of which are on pare with the leading clinics in North America.

I’m also impressed by the work and technique of the Transmed clinic based in Istanbul, Turkey. To see their website, click here . However, I did not have the opportunity to visit this clinic on this trip.

However, no person or group of people can have perfect or definitive information about the quality of work being done at all clinics throughout Europe. Thus while I did not find any clinics in Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, Germany, Greece, Austria, etc. that appeared compelling enough to merit a visit, it is possible that I might not be aware of such clinics.

Thus I chose to visit the following clinics which I thought looked most promising in Europe:

Dr. Jean DeVroye – Brussels, Belgium
Dr. Bijan Feriduni – Hasselt, Belgium
Pro Hair Clinic in Belgium

Note – Dr. Bisanga, with the BHR clinic in Brussels, looked impressive. However, he was in the USA during my visit and thus not available to let me observe his surgery.

Farjo Medical Centre in Manchester, England (Physicians Drs. Bessam and Nilofer Farjo)
Rogers clinic in London (physicians – Dr. Rogers and Dr. Stevenson)


Highlights from Pat’s Visit to Leading Clinics in Belgium:

Based upon the impressive work that I witnessed in Belgium, this small country in particular appears to be a hotbed of world class hair transplantation. Brussels is centrally located and easy to access, which is perhaps one of the reasons that Brussels is the capitol city of European Union as well as NATO. The world class work that I see being done in Belgium is so compelling that I recommend that Germans, French, Spanish and other Europeans strongly consider traveling to Belgium to get world class hair transplant services.

The Belgians, in particular the Flemish people outside of Brussels, are also very multi lingual with many of them speaking English, French and German in addition to Flemish.

Visit to Dr. Jean DeVroye’s hair transplant clinic in Brussels, Belgium

I have known Dr. DeVroye for several years. In fact we both attended our first hair conference in Paris ten years ago – me as a show case patient of Dr. Ron Shapiro and Dr. DeVroye as physician who was aspiring to become a great hair transplant surgeon.

We’ll after ten years of hard work and dedication; I believe that Dr. DeVroye has succeeded. He has really paid his dues over the years – observing and working extensively with leading hair transplant surgeons in North America, attending international hair restoration meetings and more recently becoming an important contributor and teacher in his own right.

Having seen him perform surgery and discussed the finer details of his surgery I believe that Dr. DeVroye is both an artist and a skilled hair transplant surgeon. He strives for perfection and it shows in his staff, the procedure and in the final patient results.

His procedure is one of the most minimally invasive, refined and clean procedures that I have every seen. His staff also seems to share his enthusiasm and commitment to excellence. They work together as a team harmoniously and their all microscopic graft cutting and placing are second to none in my opinion.

I had the honor of watching three of Dr. DeVroye’s ultra refined follicular unit procedures over three days and I was very impressed at all stages of the procedure. It simply doesn’t get any better any where.

Dr. DeVroye has been recommended on the Hair Transplant Network (see his profile ) for the past few years. But after seeing the level of he and his staff’s work I think he should be considered for membership in the Coalition of Independent Hair Restoration Physicians. Frankly, I think he has really earned a place amongst the best of the best.

To see photos of these procedures and to read my highlights, click here .

His website also provides a wealth of great information in multiple languages, including immediate post op photos and examples of his trichophytic closure.

Visit to Dr. Bijan Ferduni hair transplant clinic in Hasselt, Belgium

After having spent the last ten years searching for the very best hair transplant physicians, it’s rare to discover an outstanding physician who is not on our community. When it happens it’s as exciting as finding a giant gem after digging through rocks for days.

That excitement is what I felt after watching Dr. Feriduni and his staff perform truly refined follicular unit grafting. Their attention to detail, donor closure, microscopic graft cutting and graft placing were all excellent. His trichophytic closure technique was one of the most refined that I’ve ever seen.

Dr. Feriduni offers his patients both ultra refined follicular unit grafting and follicular unit extraction (FUE), with many of his FUE cases exceeding 1,000 grafts in one day.

Dr. Feriduni provides free and very personable consultations in English, French, German and Flemmish. I look forward to making more information available about Dr. Feriduni and his outstanding clinic.

To see highlights from my visit to his clinic, click here .

Visit to the ProHair FUE hair transplant clinic in Mechelen, Belgium

In May of 2007 at the ESHRS meeting in Paris Dr. Ilter announced to his colleagues that he was regularly performing FUE mega sessions of up to 3,000 grafts per day with follicle transaction rates that he believes are under 1 percent, while using punches that are as small as 0.6mm. Such claims certainly raised some eyebrows and skepticism among many of his colleagues. Dr. Ilter responded by inviting his physician colleagues to visit him at either the Pro Hair Clinic in Belgium or the Ilter clinic in Stockholm, Sweden to watch him do it.

Bart, who posts on our forum as “Bverotti” and who works as a patient consultant for the Pro Hair Clinic, also announced this claim on this and other discussion forums. He was also met with skepticism. Bart extended an invitation to me to visit the Pro Hair Clinic to see for myself.

Having watched FUE be born and heavily oversold on the Internet years ago, I’ve always been skeptical of its value given its relative high cost, shaving of the entire donor area, small session sizes and potential for follicle transaction and damage.

However, if most of these limitations were over come I’d be the first to want to see it for myself. If FUE could indeed be done in mega sessions with minimal follicle transaction and cosmetically undetectable scars due to the tiny 0.6 and 0.7mm punches then this would make the procedure much more viable and appealing.

So I did visit the Pro Hair Clinic during my time in Belgium. Unfortunately, the surgery that was scheduled during the day of my visit was canceled unexpectedly by the patient. I would have really liked to stand by and watch them do a 1,500 plus graft session in one day.

However, I did have an opportunity to meet with Bart and visit the Pro Hair Clinic. Bart is a true believer in FUE mega sessions and had FUE surgery with Dr. Jones in Toronto and more recently he did a one day FUE session of 1,850 grafts with Dr. Ilter.

I enjoyed meeting with Bart and found him to have a genuine enthusiasm for the big session FUE surgeries. When he showed me the 0.6 and 0.7mm punches that they use I was amazed at how small they were. To see photos of these punches and the clinic, click here.

Hard to imagine that such tiny punches could successfully extract one hair follicles let alone two and three hair ones with transaction rates of less than one percent. But Bart claims that the physicians, who do FUE all day every day, develop the ability to feel their way around the follicle as they rotate the punch down and around the follicles.
While Dr. Ilter does on occasion perform surgery at the Pro Hair Clinic in Belgium, he primarily does the majority of his surgeries at his Ilter Clinic in Stockholm, Sweden. The majority of FUE surgeries performed at the Pro Hair Clinic are performed by Dr. DeReys, who was trained by Dr. Ilter.

While I will remain skeptical until I see more evidence of the success of such FUE mega sessions I will keep an open mind. After all, I remember when most physicians resisted the early strip mega sessions that were 1,500 grafts – claiming that the scalp could not support such giant sessions and that such tiny grafts could not possibly create density.

Dr. Bill Rassman’s response to such nay saying is a classic – “Those who say it can’t be done should not stand in the way of those who are doing it everyday.”

FUE mega sessions? Have they really arrived? I expect we will all know much more in the months to come.


Highlights from Pat’s Visit to Leading Clinics in the United Kingdom:

Over the years the UK has earned a reputation online for generally providing outdated, sub pare and even harmful hair transplant results. Most of the UK hair transplant clinics in my opinion simply provide sub pare techniques and results.

However, I believe there are two clinics in the UK that are heads and shoulders above the rest of the UK clinics. I chose to visit these two, while the other clinics in my opinion and in the opinion of many others were not worth visiting.

These two UK based clinics are the Roger’s clinic and the Farjo Medical Centre.

Visit to the Farjo Medical Centre in Manchester, England

After watching Dr. Bessam Farjo and his wife Dr. Nilofer Farjo and their staff in action over two days and two impressive ultra refined surgeries, I was very pleased to see that they have successfully incorporated all of the most important recent advances in hair restoration into their clinic and procedure.

All of their grafts are carefully trimmed under microscopes, with Dr. Nilofer Farjo closely supervising the medical technicians, while cutting and placing grafts herself. Both Bessam and Nilofer also create all the carefully oriented and minimally invasive graft incisions using custom cut blades that are as small as 0.7mm. Their use of small incisions enables their patients to achieve greater density in a single session, while experiencing quicker healing.

They take a team approach to the surgery with all hands on deck and working well together. Given the size and skill of the team the clinic can perform large sessions in excess of 3,000 grafts when appropriate for the patient. They typically limit themselves to one patient a day to achieve an optimal level of care.

Their donor strip removal and trichophytic closure are also very state of the art with care taken to minimize any follicle transaction or scarring in the donor area.

In short, in my opinion, the quality of care and service being provided by the Farjo clinic is on pare with leading clinics in North America.

To view highlights from the two days that I observed surgery at the Farjo Medical Centre, click here .

Visit to the Rogers Clinic in London and Stratford-Upon-Avon

Recently in reading the UK based hair loss forum, Stop Hair Loss Now, I was impressed by how forth right Dr. Rogers was in responding to the concerns of UK patients and hair loss suffers. His willingness to engage in open dialog on this forum and be publicly accountable for his patient results, as well as share his own recent hair transplant experience online has earned him a degree of respect with the members of this forum and with me.

After speaking with Dr. Rogers by telephone and learning that he was adopting leading edge refinements such as using tiny custom cut blades as small as 0.8mm and moving toward bigger high density sessions, I decided to visit his clinic and observe him and his lovely associate, Dr. Alexandra Stevenson, performing surgery.After learning that Dr. Rogers was moving toward adopting leading edge refinements such as using tiny custom cut blades as small as 0.8mm and moving toward bigger high density sessions, I decided to visit his clinic and observe him and his lovely associate, Dr. Alexandra Stevenson, performing surgery.

After visiting with them over two days, my impression of Dr. Rogers, Dr. Stevenson and their staff is that they are ethical and striving to do quality work for their patients. Dr. Rogers is well aware of the ultra refined surgical techniques being used by the leading hair transplant clinics in North America and has made progress in recent years in implementing some of these evolutions in technique, including smaller and less invasive incisions.

Dr. Rogers and Dr. Stevenson also take great care in how they remove the donor tissue and they do a double layer trichophytic closure.

However, they are still not doing all microscopic dissection. They do use microscopes for trimming the donor strip into smaller sections (a process referred to as “slivering”) and for some of the grafts. Yet most of the techs are only using back lighting with eye loops or no loops at all.

In my opinion, based on observation, published studies and input from dozens of leading physicians, all microscopic graft dissection is important if a clinic is going to successfully perform ultra refined follicular unit grafting with optimal results.

I hope that they will adopt all microscopic dissection in the coming months. If they do, I think that their procedure has the potential to be world class.

Dr. Roger’s has over ten years experience in performing hair transplantation and performs sessions of up to 3,000 all follicular unit grafts. Dr. Stevenson has been doing hair transplantation for over two years and learned her techniques from Dr. Rogers. While the quality of her work is very high, her session sizes are typically limited to around 1,500 grafts. In my opinion, if she aspires to be competitive online on a world wide playing field she will need to move beyond her comfort zone and perform bigger sessions when appropriate for her patients.

In general I believe that the Rogers Clinic and its committed staff are doing vastly better hair transplantation than other hair transplant clinics in the UK, with the exception of the Farjo Clinic.

I expect that they will in time rise to the challenge of doing all microscopic dissection in the coming months. I look forward to monitoring their progress and patient reports and in time recommending them on our community once they meet our high standards (To view our standards for recommendation, visit http://www.hairtransplantnetwork.com/Consult-a-Physicia...tion-physicians.asp).

To view highlights and photos from my two day visit, click here .


Hair Transplant Clinics in Ireland

Dr. Maurice Collins - Dublin

I visited Dr. Maurice Collins’ clinic in Dublin about two years ago when he was in the early stages of establishing his hair restoration clinic at the Black Rock Clinic. Previously Dr. Collins had been very diligent in attending all the major hair transplant conferences and visiting leading clinics to learn about the optimal procedures and techniques.

Dr. Collins spared no expense in setting up a state of the art facility with a quality staff. While his procedure looked solid and physicians visiting more recently have spoken highly of his procedure, I find that his prices are very high - as much as 20,000 euros ($28,000) for a 2,000 graft session. He also charges 250 euros for his consultations.

Given such high prices I could not in good conscious recommend his clinic.

Dr. Conor Kiely - Cork

I met Dr. Kiely at some of the international hair transplant meetings in recent years. He impressed me as having a genuine interest in learning about the best hair transplant techniques and procedures. He also invested time in visiting with some of the leading hair transplant surgeons in North America, including Dr. Ron Shapiro and Dr. David Seager.

Judging from his website he appears to be performing state of the art follicular unit hair transplantation. But I have gotten very little feedback from his patients.

However, I had made travel arrangements and booked flights to observe his surgery at his clinic in Cork, Ireland. Unfortunately, he experienced a family emergency and was not available on the day I was to visit.

If any patients of his would care to share their experiences on this forum or with me by email I encourage them to do so.

excellent work pat,with your help i hope we can rid this site of the stigma attached to non u.s. surgeons.well done!

Pat,
Thanks for committing the time and effort to review the best European clinics. It is great to know that we have some world class physicians in Europe and don't necessarily have to travel to get a great HT.

Look forward to follow up pics.

Pat,

Well it certainly sounds like you had a busy but productive trip.

Am I gathering from all of this that the only clinic you are recommending for the coalition at this time is Dr. Jean DeVroye? I do look forward to viewing the photos that you took of a live surgery when you post the links.

I admit, I am also skeptical of the "FUE megasessions for all" philosophy, but I am certainly willing to keep an open mind. After all...isn't this what the medical profession is all about? Advancement? Certainly if it is possible, I would like to see it at the very least by seeing a number of before/immediately post op/after pictures, though I admit, I would love to witness the surgery in person.

I'm glad to hear that The Rogers Clinic is starting to adopt some of the latest techniques, however, I would also be reluctant to recommend them until they adopt microscopic dissection.

My hope at this point is that some of these clinics along with others (and hopefully even moreso their patients) will get involved on our community and post real results so we can see them first hand through photos. I think too many recommended and coalition clinics hide in the wood works, which makes it next to impossible for the dedicated members and patients of this community to give a REAL recommendation. But this is one of the challenges that we face in this community. Hopefully over time, this will change.

Keep up the good work Pat.

Falc

Pat,

Did you do lunch or tequila shots with the Hairobservator?? I expect to see some photos of your night in the red light district in Amsterdamn with the infamous Mr. Hairobservator!

NN

Hi Pat,
It was a pleasure having you visit us.

Nervousnelly,
the word goes that hairobservator has been banned from the red light district in amterdam ...

Hi Pat,

maybe you could ever consider a trip / visit to the My Hair Clinic (www.myhairclinic.com) in Islamabad, Pakistan. I have been myself a patient in March 2006 and May 2007, each time for 3.000 grafts FUE (3 to 4 days HT and between 750 to 1.000 grafts transplanted a day). If a third HT would be required I would vist Dr. Mohamed Hussain again. He is really a very committed surgeon and his HT "solutions" are done from a perpective to offer the best possible esthical/cosmetical result. To me he is really an artist in this field.
Dr. Hussain offers HT in Oslo (Norway)and meets quite often patients in Europe (London, Brussels, Oslo, Copenhagen)for pre-OP assessments.

In his clinic (offering affordable B&B accomodation)I met other patients who suffered from a previous HT (some of them had strip) and applied for his help in order to repair the effects of their previous HT results.
Pictures tells more than words can describe and therefore I would like you to invite to visit his website, check the testimonials / pictures and see my results under Belgian male, 51 y old. To me the quality/cost relation is unbeatable. The clinic is situated in a big modern house in a very safe area outside of Islamabad downtown, ca. 40 min. from Islamabad International airport.

Kind regards
Johan

That was a very informative read for us
uk and europe guys , Thx