Is it customary to leave the donar area open, un-sutured, until the end of the surgery?

For 1500+ graft procedures, is there typically a donar area in the back and on the sides of the head?

they closed mine right away.

I have never heard of a doctor leaving the donor area open and unsutured until the end of surgery. I think even most hacks close the donor area right after the strip has been extracted.

Nope, never heard that either. For a start, once the strip has been removed, you change position and the back of your head rests on the chair so the surgeon can do his incisions. No way he/she would leave an open donor area with blood dripping and all the rest. It's nonsense.

After both of my transplants, they surgeon closed the donor area immediately.

They had to do this before turning me over to insert the grafts.

Actually, I had not heard of it either, until reading about it in the New Yorker article. Bosley was quoted as saying that the suture area on a recent patient was left open till the end in case additional grafts needed to be extracted.

I know that it is 'Bosley', but I was curious how typical it was.

Thanks for the replies.

Not typical at all. There are breaks in the procedure where the patient is allowed to stand up and stretch, go to the bathroom, eat lunch, etc. To be expected to do this with a large opening in the scalp would be outrageous.

-Robert

quote:

Bosley was quoted as saying that the suture area on a recent patient was left open till the end in case additional grafts needed to be extracted.

You've got to be sh*tting me????? That's insane.

First, they should have calculated how many possible grafts were needed to cover the area in question before any type of surgery was even considered.

Second, to do this, most doctors will know the density of the patient donor area in order to have a really good idea of how large a donor strip must be taken to get the required number of grafts.

Third, with each transplant I've had, the size of the donor strip allowed for a little tolerance on the plus side. If I remember correctly, my first transplant was for 1500 grafts and the donor strip yielded about 1590. The second transplant was for 1000 grafts and the donor strip yielded about 1075.

Sounds like this doctor was either, 1.)inexperienced at calculating the donor strip size, or 2.) so cheap he/she was scared that they might have to put in an extra graft or two!