So the purpose of today's procedure is to show a state of the art method and to show the ideal way to do a hair transplant that's really the best for the patient. The basic rule that we follow is we do one patient at time; we have one surgeon-that will be me-with him the whole time. We have one team working, coordinated in time. And we want this one hair transplant we do to stand the test of time, to stand alone. And if he never had another one, to still be a good result that will last him a lifetime.
Preparing the Donor Area
MICHAEL REED: Now first I'd like to show the area where we're going to perform the transplant. This is the patient's frontal scalp. If we draw a line from the top of each ear across the top of the head, and we stay in front of that, that is the frontal scalp. So the frontal scalp is where the hair starts, in the so-called anterior hair zone, or hairline, and then where it stops, at this point between the ears.
This is the target area for today's hair transplant. This is the area where hair will do Mr. T the most good in terms of his day to day life and how people see him and perceive of him in terms of his hair. Remember this: that when somebody looks at another person, they first make eye contact. Then their eye unconsciously travels up the forehead until it stops at the hairline. If it does not stop at the hairline and it goes off the head into outer space, the mind perceives baldness. So what we're going to do here is create a new hairline, which is natural in the front and dense in the back, so that Mr. T will basically no longer be perceived of as bald by people who look at him in most normal circumstances.
