Written by Jean Devroye, MD, FISHRS, Hair Transplant Surgeon in Brussels, Belgium and founder of Devroye Instruments
Today, I’m so sad.
A young 24-year-old patient of mine committed suicide in the prime of his life. The story is banal: he was seduced by the promise of finally having a beautiful beard. Especially as the prices offered are so attractive. The decision was made – he would go to Turkey for the operation he’d been dreaming of.
Sometime later, he telephoned me in distress to see if I could help him. The operation had taken place. Unfortunately, like thousands of others before him, he realized that the ‘operators’ were not only unqualified, but the surgery was not even performed by a doctor – resulting in a depletion of his donor area. Sadly, he is another victim of the black market.
Afterward, I saw him for the first time via a video conference. The situation was not catastrophic, but this patient was eager for a correction. He was anxious to remove these grafts from his face, where there was clearly too much hair. But above all, he was obsessed with his donor area – which had been depleted.
The therapeutic solution for the hair transplant repair was simple: remove part of the grafts, subdivide them, and then replace a single-hair graft in the holes created. The excess grafts would then be transferred to the donor area.
The operation that I would perform was decided upon and carried out. This young patient was delighted, and a second operation had already been scheduled to continue the correction.
The next day, in the words of his accompanying mother, “he is transformed.” She tells me that she has found her son again. The post-op was normal and the situation was evolving well. The donor area was grafted as he wished. I kept in touch with him by email and by sending him photos.
A month later, a post-op consultation I always plan was scheduled. I saw him via a video platform. He seemed to be doing well. Unfortunately, I didn’t detect any distress in him.
I would later find out that he was not doing well. His parents tried to phone me that very morning. But unfortunately, I was not able to answer the call at that moment. I had spent a long time via our video call, reassuring him and explaining how a second hair transplant repair would perfect the result and most likely solve his problem.
A few days later, he committed suicide.
His very dignified parents contacted me to thank me, telling me that I had done 95 percent of the work, but a bitter taste stuck in my throat. Why didn’t I see enough of this young man’s distress? He left a beautiful letter to his parents, but he’s dead and I’m so angry at those who treat our young people like that. The main reason for his torment seems to have been the feeling of having been cheated by the black market clinic and of not having been respected by unscrupulous people.
Hair transplants aren’t just a technical act; we also often touch the patient’s soul.
I often replay it in my mind and imagine that I could have saved him. It’s a simple story about a young man who had his whole life ahead of him and died because of a badly done beard transplant…