China Meeting 2017
The CAHRS held its 2nd annual meeting in Hongzhou China last month with over 300 doctors in attendance. It was especially nice for us foreign doctors as they had simultaneous translations Mandarin to English. My special interest was in the live surgery workshop featuring high speed FUE extraction. I really wanted to examine the graft quality extracted using a sharp punch at high speed.
There were 3 live surgery demonstrations all using FUE. Dr Devroye and myself demonstrated 1600 FUE grafts to reconstruct frontal hairline and infill on a young man. We used Devroye’s WAW system for the extractions. As usual the graft quality was excellent and the transections rates very low (1%). The trumpet flat punch design is especially good for Asian hair as it can penetrate deeper than a sharp punch without transection thus making the extraction easier. The recipient sites were cut at 40/cm2 using customs blades and lateral slits. Graft placement was done using Wong’s prototype insertor. The hair shaft alignment of the grafted hair was spot on and we anticipate very natural growth. 40/cm2 using coarse dark Asian hair should give great coverage and density.
In the second OR we saw FUE using a sharp punch. The graft quality was very good with a transection rate of 10 to 15%. These are certainly higher than the flat trumpet punch but still very good for sharp punch. A lot of surgeons claim transection rates of 3 to 4 % using a sharp punch but when seen in real live none of the claims are true and they are well above the 10 to 15% observed here. All the grafts were trimmed before placing. Insertion was done using needle holes, placement using forceps holding the upper portion of the grafts. This requires a larger needle (blade) so dense packing will be more difficult.
Speed is seductive and most of the young doctors were attracted to high speed FUE extractions. The message that we try to emphasize is that quality must come first and that every donor hair is non replaceable and precious. Most patients do not have a surplus of donor hair and that speed is dangerous without quality.
The other highlight of the trip was spending time together with my assistants Carmen, Winnie, Dr Jean Devroye and his assistant Marie. We spend 2 days touring Yellow Mountain and saw the most amazing sunrise near the mountaintop. It was a very spiritual moment, one that I will not soon forget. Even the bus ride was fun discussing technical aspects and ideas concerning current and future idea on improving FUE.
I want to thank Dr Jufang the chair person of this meeting and the organizing committee for 1) the invitation to this workshop and 2) looking after each and every detail of this China trip, the hospitality was amazing.
Korean Meeting 2017
KSHRS was held a few days after the China meeting so that we were able to attend both. Like to thank Dr. Jae Park and the executive committee for the kind invitation to attend.
In 2012 I attended the KSHRS meeting for the first time and the things that I remember the most was just how nice the doctor’s offices were and their skill with the implanters.
For a live surgery workshop the KSHRS has the best format. Soul has a high concentration of hair transplants/cosmetic surgery centers all within a fairly short distance of each other. This allows a small group of people in each surgical center so that everyone can fit into the OR at the same time without overcrowding and view the whole operation. It also allows the operating surgeon to work in his/her own environment. The only drawback was we were not able to attend all the surgeries as we had to choose 2 surgeries to observe. We were able to squeeze in an extra surgery by coming a day earlier and watch Jean Devroye demonstrate his WAW system.
As expected the quality of the work was very high. We saw motorized long hair FUE, eyebrow FUT. Prototype punches and motorized chair designed esp. for upright FUE extractions. It is always amazing to see their speed and skill with the sharp implanters. In addition to speed really fine detailed work such as the eyebrows can be done with relative ease as the single hair implanters have improved and gotten much more refined. Other difficult areas such as temple points and facial hairs are so much easier with implanters but the grafts all need to be trimmed perfectly in order to fit into the small needle bore.
Gala dinner with entertainment the first night and Korean barbeque the second night celebrating Korean style (wild). We stayed at the Merriott hotel build on top of one of the most amazing collection of food stalls anywhere. This one stall had these amazing cheese egg tarts that kept calling me back twice a day. So good!
Next year Korea will hold their domestic meeting and should have another international meeting the following year. If you have never been this meeting has it all. I’m going to push my retirement back another few years so that I could attend another Korean meeting.
Jerry Wong
