How to Find a Good Hair Transplant Surgeon There is no law in the US that requires a doctor to have any special credentials to perform hair transplant surgery, other than basic licensing as a physician. This leaves many potential candidates for the surgery in the dark. It is difficult to know the difference between a good hair transplant surgeon and an inexperienced one. You should start to get concerned if your doctor has no specific good stories to tell about hair transplant surgery they have done. You need to see before and after photos. You need a way to contact former patients. If at all possible, you need to be able to visit with patients the doctor has treated so they can show you the results in person. He will want to know the basics of your lifestyle as they relate to your health and hair. The doctor will also want to know what you think will change when you have your hair transplant. If your expectations are too high, you may be referred to counseling before a reputable doctor will perform a hair transplant. If you have keloid scarring after hair transplant surgery, it is probably because you are genetically inclined to have it. Very infrequently, patients have scarring that takes the form of ridges. The side effects of hair transplant surgery are not particularly difficult for the person who has them. They are more like minor inconveniences for most people. They looked quite unnatural; if a person had hair plugs, everyone knew it. They were not only unbecoming, they were also permanent. Improvements were made in hair transplant surgery in the 1980s. Mini-grafts were better, but they still had the appearance of plugs, albeit smaller plugs. These were made up of 5-8 hairs each. The grafts will be more permanently set into place when the technicians dry them by blowing a cool blow dryer across them. This makes them adhere in their place so that no bandages are necessary. The patient will be asked to bring, or will be given, a baseball cap for the ride home from the hair transplant procedure.