Hair transplant surgery can be an incredible, life changing option for those who make good candidates for the procedure, but in today’s cut-throat, turnkey, hair transplant mill environment, if prospective patients aren’t privy to the the information they need to make truly informed decisions, they are literally putting their lives in danger. Newport Beach, hair transplant surgeon and IAHRS accepted member Amir Yazdan, M.D. sits down with Spencer Kobren to discuss.

Spencer Kobren: Listen, you learn how to do it the right way. You chose to do it the right way.

Amir Yazdan, MD: Right.

Spencer Kobren: You had a choice early in your career.

Amir Yazdan, MD: Absolutely.

Spencer Kobren: Yeah.

Amir Yazdan, MD: I mean I had the choice of getting techs, getting assistance, running three rooms at once, three patients having surgeries at once and doing this, but it's not the right way. If you do things the wrong way, it eventually catches up to you and if you do things the right way and you do the cases right, patients want to come to you, they want you to do the surgery.

Spencer Kobren: That's what a reasonable person with a moral compass ...

Amir Yazdan, MD: Correct.

Spencer Kobren: Believes.

Amir Yazdan, MD: Correct.

Spencer Kobren: In this industry, you can fuck as many people as you want and you could still survive even with what's happening on the internet. It's a little more difficult now because consumers have more of a voice. but when we look at the big players, the guys that you see coming through your office, patients and you're like, how the fuck did this happen, it's because they own the market because of marketing.

Amir Yazdan, MD: Yeah, and it's hard to fight them because there's a lot of money being spent on marketing, a lot of money. I mean there's practices that are easily spending 100 grand a month ...

Spencer Kobren: Sure.

Amir Yazdan, MD: Just to market and I mean at the end of the day, that's 10 cases. Hey, if they're doing three cases a day, what is that?

Spencer Kobren: That's right, nothing.

Amir Yazdan, MD: It's nothing. It's just a mill and it's just a business and the more you throw out the marketing, the more return you're going to get on your investment, bringing in more techs, opened up another room. In my practice, one case a day, that's all I do.

Spencer Kobren: It's not just a lifestyle decision to have a hair transplant. A lot of these guys think that this is their only hope to live a life, to have interpersonal relationships, to do well in their business ...

Amir Yazdan, MD: Their confidence.

Spencer Kobren: Right.

Amir Yazdan, MD: It's confidence.

Spencer Kobren: Yeah.

Amir Yazdan, MD: That's the most thing I see with younger guys, even older guys ...

Spencer Kobren: Older guys.

Amir Yazdan, MD: Doing their hair, it's a confidence issue.

Spencer Kobren: Why would I wear a can of hairspray and paint my head at 53 years old if it didn't bother me so much?

Amir Yazdan, MD: Yeah, absolutely and people are taking advantage of that lower self-esteem or whatever you want to call it. They're taking advantage of that and they're doing that and at the end, they're hurting the patient more than just trying to do the right thing and getting the patient the right outcome. That's what's sad to me, that's why I really liked being part of this organization because this is really the first one that I found that's really combating that and going against it and trying to educate the consumer that hey look, doctor should be involved with the surgery, they shouldn't just be a plastic surgeon who's doing nose jobs one day, boob jobs the other and hair the third day.