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I had a hair transplant that deformed me a number of years ago. I have been depressed and angry, hiding under a baseball hat much of the time. Now, I want to get back at the doctor and make him pay me for my suffering. He had no right to do this to me and had I know what I was getting, I would never had the surgery done. How does one find a lawyer to represent me in a malpractice case against the doctor?

This is a hard question for many reasons. First, you are angry and I understand the anger, but you did make the choice to have the procedure and must recognize your role in enabling the doctor, even though you feel that you were a victim. The old axiom, ‘buyer beware’ holds for anything you buy, even a hair transplant. I am not sanctioning what happened to you, for I have seen hundreds of men in your situation and I have great compassion for someone who wanted to take charge and improve their appearance, and find themselves going south when they wanted to go north. Unfortunately, the old procedures did not meet the standards of many people. Today’s surgery is much better and the standards are good enough to meet even the most critical buyer.

First, I must qualify my credentials by saying that I am not a lawyer, just a well informed doctor. Every State has a ‘Statute of Limitations’ which means that you must file an action within (usually) 2-3 years of the point when you realized you were damaged. I will assume that your surgery goes back to the old days when big plugs were done (10 + year ago). You can, of course, go back to the doctor who did the work and ask him to fix it. A good doctor should try to make things right, but with your degree of anger, you must first address your anger and try to determine just what you want to do about the problem that you are living with. Alternatives to a malpractice suit include: (a) Complaints to the State Medical Board (which in California are always investigated by representatives of the State Attorney General’s office), and (b) Complaints to the Better Business Bureau (this is a place that new patients will often go when checking out a doctor).

Focus on the positive! I generally tell patients who have had the older work to put together a priority list of things that bother them. The more that they are bothered, the higher on the list these complaints should be. If you direct your energies to fix your problem and make it right (overcome the problems) then you can go on with your life. I have written extensively on repairs for the older type of work (see Medical Publications) and have many examples of repairs done on our website (see: Repair Work Photo Gallery).

There are many problems with going the malpractice litigation route that you are asking about. I do know a little about the difficulty in a hair malpractice suit, as I have been an expert witness in the past. I am familiar with two cases that ‘succeeded’, one was settled for less than the cost to fix the work, and the second (poor outcome from scalp reductions) got one of the largest awards in California $140,000 (to be paid over 20 years). He took it all in cash up front (which meant that it was discounted to less than half) and he had to pay his lawyer. The patient ended up with less than $20,000 for himself. Considering the time and energy he put into it, it may have been a poor decision to go that route. The crime here was that he suffered a second time, living the nightmare in court activities for a number of years starting from the time he filed the case. Malpractice cases (particularly in the cosmetic hair business) rarely succeed. The problem for litigation is:

1. The ‘Standard of Care’ is what the plaintiff must prove was not practiced. In the old days when plugs were the standard quality and although the standard was a ‘sub-standard’, litigation was rarely successful as the sub-standard was the standard that had to be met.
2. Even if a surgical procedure fails to work, the ‘victim’ must prove that they were damaged by that failure. Assume that a modern hair transplant is done and it failed 100%, the question might be asked what was the damage? Other than the money, anger and the humiliation, there may be no damage that can be demonstrated.
3. Juries have been less than sympathetic to the balding man’s plight. The patient starts from an ‘underdog’ position and any anger he has (particularly with no real evident and obvious damage) the less sympathetic may be the jury. Remember, the jurors really want to be home, on vacation or someplace other than listening to a bald man’s problems.
4. Jury decisions in hair transplantation malpractice cases have not produced the larger monetary awards that make it worth the the lawyers’ time. As such, the lawyers are generally reluctant to take them on.

The burden must therefore be on the patient to do his homework, to find a reputable doctor who is known for his good work and whose past performance that can be verified. Becoming a victim today with all of the information on the internet, and the open house events at offices like ours, make it easier for today’s transplant candidate to practice by what is suggested in the phrase “Buyer Beware”. With the power of information at his command today, such problems can and should be avoided.