There are many important questions a prospective patient should ask when considering Hair Restoration. Hair Restoration or Hair Transplant Surgery is safe and effective when performed properly and can result in impressive, natural and permanent results. Knowing the facts will help you obtain an optimal result, and can help you avoid unnecessary risks that may occur with inexperienced surgeons. Please review these 7 important points.


1) Most patients are unaware that there is currently no official certifying Board for Hair Transplant Surgery; therefore, a Hair Transplant Surgeon can not legitimately claim to be “Board Certified” in Hair Surgery.

2) While any physician can call themselves a Hair Transplant surgeon, it takes years of training and experience to obtain good results. Look for experience, usually 10 years or more. Make sure your surgeon spends the majority of their time doing this type of surgery. Dr. Pizarro has over 20 years of experience and has devoted her practice solely to Hair Restoration.

3) Many well-known hair transplant centers have adopted the “assembly line” approach to Hair Transplant Surgery. During your initial consultation, ask your physician how many hair transplant procedures are performed in one day. If it is more than two, this usually means that most of the surgery is performed by technicians and NOT by the surgeon. To get good results, the surgeon MUST take a direct role in all phases of the operation - harvesting, preparing and implanting the hair in its new location. Dr. Pizarro performs all phases of all hair transplant procedures, with the assistance of two, personally trained, experienced technicians.

4) Proper placement and size of the hair donor site are very important to facilitate future procedures. Your surgeon should be responsible for determining the proper placement and size of the donor site. The surgeon should also be the one making all the necessary incisions, and performing the removal and preparation of the donor strip. Suturing the donor site closed is also very important, as poor suturing techniques can lead to thick, wide or visible scars, and may result in pain or tightness or loss of hair. Again, your surgeon should personally perform the suturing.

5) Splitting the large donor graft into micro grafts is a delicate procedure, since improper preparation of the large donor graft could result in lost or damaged hair follicles. The initial trimming of the donor strips should be performed by the surgeon. Dr. Pizarro believes every hair follicle should be carefully preserved, and she takes great pride in performing this process.

6) Micro grafts vary in size from single hair grafts used for the frontal hairline, to grafts containing 3 or 4 closely-grouped hairs, which are used to fill in less cosmetically-crucial areas.

Some Hair Restoration facilities advise that all grafts should only contain a single hair, regardless of the proposed final location of the graft, as a method to inflate the procedure fee. Since most Hair Restoration facilities charge on a “per graft” basis, this can become excessively expensive for the patient, without a significant benefit in the quality of the final result. Don’t make a decision based only on the price per graft - if you are going to be charged for every single hair.

By carefully placing microscopic multi-hair grafts where appropriate, and keeping the single hair grafts for the most visible portions of the hairline, an honest Hair Restoration surgeon can make the patient’s fee go a lot further. Hair grafts should not be split unnecessarily. Unnecessarily hair splitting makes the procedure longer, and risks damage to the hair, resulting in a higher rate of graft loss due to manipulation of the hair follicles.

For example, Dr. Pizarro typically averages 2 hairs per graft. This means 1,000 double-hair grafts are used (on average) instead of 2,000 single hair grafts. Same total number of hairs transplanted - but a shorter surgery, higher success rates of hair graft survival, and a price savings for the patient.

7) Recipient site preparation should also be performed only by an experienced surgeon. Hair follicles are angled, therefore the recipient site incision holding the grafts should also be angled properly to give the new hair a natural appearance and feel. The spacing between hairs and shape of the hairline all play a role in getting the most natural-looking result. Once again, experience and an artistic eye make the difference between a natural and fake-looking hairline.

Dr. Pizarro performs the recipient site work herself, planning the hair location with a meticulous, artistic approach.