About NHI

About NHI Hair Clinics

I hope you find the following information of interest. However, before I tell you about some new nhi clinics developments in hair restoration surgery, I thought it appropriate that I gave you a little of my own history.

To the many thousands of people who have enquired about hair loss related products or services over the years, my name may sound familiar. I have represented the hair restoration industry from the day it first became available in the UK, back in the mid 70s. I initially joined the industry because of my own fear of hair loss, even before I had any. I only had to look at my own family history to realize that it was a nigh on certainty that I would start losing it before reaching my 30th birthday. Realizing this, I wanted to be in the best place when it came to making a decision as to what I did about it. So I joined the hair loss industry.

In those days nhi clinics was only one choice of hair transplant surgery – ‘plug’ surgery. This method involved a doctor ‘drilling’ a small circular area of hair-bearing skin from the back of the head with a ‘Black and Decker’! No kidding! Then they drilled an equivalent ‘plug’ of skin out of the bald area and replaced it with the plug of hair-bearing skin. The results of the procedure were limited. How do you design a hairline with a series of 4.5mm circles of hair-bearing skin? It is like placing a few pennies close together on a flat surface; there are always going to be gaps.
Fortunately, when it came to my joining the industry in 1974, the clinic group I represented had acquired the services of an Australian surgeon. He came over to the UK to train other groups of prospective ‘hair doctors’ in what was then an almost unknown technology. He also trained me as a young ‘patient consultant’ all those years ago and continues to be my friend and mentor to the present day.

His name is Dr.Richard Shiell MD. Richard went on to become one of the recognized pioneers of the hair transplant industry. Apart from being one of the founders and Governors of the International Society of Hair Restoration Surgeons (ISHRS), Richard has received every award and honor there is, including the highest award in the industry, the ‘Manfred Lucas Award’, which he received in 1999 for lifetime services to the hair transplant profession. This award has only ever been awarded to three others:

• Dr. Norman Orentreich – one of the earliest pioneers of nhi clinics hair restoration surgery
• Dr. O’tar Norwood – the man who produced all those little heads we often see depicting various stages of male pattern baldness stage 1V, stage V11 etc. – it is named after him – the Norwood Chart
• Dr. Sheldon Kabaker - who introduced the ‘Juri flap’ and scalp expansion techniques to many notable hair transplant surgeons. This is a method of ‘swinging’ one’s side hair around in the front scalp to form part of the hairline
To those of you who, in the course of responding to my advertising or having visited my website, have gotten to know a little about me, there is one thing that I hope comes through clearly. I know the industry intimately and can speak with authority about it. I have successfully combated hair loss for the last 30 years and have done so from strength. I was:
• 1st to introduce Minoxidil (Regain) to the UK in 1984 through a talk show on Manchester’s ‘Piccadilly Radio’ and have made the hair drugs available to people through my company’s doctors ever since.
• 1st to use Finasteride (Propecia) – a medical paper was published on my use of the ‘new’ drug in 1994, two years after I commenced using it in 1992.
• 1st to introduce micro grafting surgery to the public in 1994 with my former associates in ‘Advanced Hair Technology’.
• 1st to highlight the Choi technique through extensive advertising in recent years and my eventual surgery in 2001.

Without exception, everybody that I have represented over the last 30 years, as his or her patient consultant, has invariably played a leading role in enabling me to ‘hold on to my hair’! What better way to represent the hair loss industry than to be able to demonstrate to others the benefits of well planned and well executed hair restoration surgery than on oneself?

Where do you go?
Most men suffering hair loss would die rather than approach their own doctor.

Who do you talk to?
Of course you can call the British Medical Association to check someone’s qualifications, even what they specialize in. You can also check them out on the Internet but that won’t tell you how happy their previous patients are.

How do you know if ‘your’ surgeon’s work is consistent?
He may have good days and bad days, like the rest of us, but that shouldn’t affect his work! – Should it? Only time can tell me but who’s going to tell you? Ask any clinic about qualifications and they will tell you: “All of our surgeons work to the highest standard and closely adhere to recognized guidelines”. As already discussed, throughout my career I have only represented specialists in this industry by ‘example’. If they have been good enough for me, they have to be good enough for even the most discerning of people. If you take a close look at my hair during a consultation you will see for yourself. Right from my first hair transplant procedure with ‘plugs’ in 1979 with Dr. Richard Shiell, through a further two procedures with microsurgery (1995 and 1998), I had chosen well.

Then finally 2001 and the Choi procedure. The operating team who performed my procedure were superb. The surgeons work on my hairline is about the closest one can get to nature itself. He achieved this by planting the single and follicular units so that the front hairline is ‘staggered’, as opposed to a typical ‘straight line’ hairline – Often the ‘give-away’ with conventional surgery. With the Choi nhi clinics being a needle, the surgeon is able to place one hair fractionally forward or behind the last hair planted achieving a ‘staggered’ (zigzagged) effect. Closely mimicking nature’s original design. As any surgeon will tell you, there are no straight lines in nature. For the past few years, I have proudly represented the the Choi technique and the experts who have made this procedure the success it has now become.