Question:
I’ve heard that strip procedures are a team effort and require multiple people and not just the doctor. Can you tell me approximately how many people are involved during a procedure, what each one does and what the doctor does?
Answer:
The team is made up of 4-6 people including myself and an assistant surgeon, a registered nurse and one to three hair technicians depending on the number of grafts planned for the surgery. Once the donor site is harvested, it is given to the technicians who then begin dividing the tissue into individual hair grafts. In the meantime, I, along with an assistant surgeon, close the donor site leaving only a thin incision line surrounded and hidden by your remaining hair. I do not shave the surrounding hair for this purpose. I also personally create the recipient sites at this time. Once enough grafts are divided, I start the process of placing grafts individually, but since this is a very tedious and time-consuming process, the technicians ultimately take over and finish placing the grafts.