Q: When performing a repair on an old, pluggy hair transplant, why can’t all the grafts be removed at once? A: We always try to do this, but it is not always possible. If the large grafts (plugs) are spaced too close together, suturing one will put tension on an adjacent graft and make it [...]

“Over the past 10 years we’ve developed a new procedure called follicular unit transplantation, where hair is transplanted exactly the way it grows,” said Dr. Robert Bernstein [...] This new technique replaces the plugs — groups of hairs inserted into round holes in the scalp — used in the early days of hair transplant procedures. It is now known that hair grows in groups of one to four hairs.

“Good Morning America” interviewed Dr. Bernstein in their two-part series on hair transplant surgery. Below is an excerpt from the interview:

Charles Gibson: Are there good candidates and bad candidates for this?
Dr. Bernstein: Yes. And actually people that wear hairpieces are sometimes tricky because their baseline is a full head of hair, so one of the important things that we had to discuss in the first consult was what his expectations were and whether he realized that a transplant wouldn’t give him the fullness of a hairpiece, but of course, it would look much more natural.

Watch the full interview.

The Discovery Channel interviewed Dr. Bernstein for a piece on hair transplant repair. Below is an excerpt from the interview:

Dr. Bernstein: When I first saw Ken in 1995. He still had the traditional plugs, and I would say on a scale of one to ten, he was maybe a seven, with ten being the worst. We performed a procedure called follicular unit transplantation where hair is transplanted in exactly the way it grows in nature, which are little tiny groups of one to four hairs.

Ken Gold: After the first surgery I was just ecstatic because I was actually able to look at myself in the mirror.

Watch the full interview.