The Hair Transplant Network recently interviewed Dr. Christine Shaver, Head of the NYC Division of Bernstein Medical – Center for Hair Restoration.
FUE is a type of hair transplant that involves removing individual naturally occurring follicular units of 1, 2, 3, or 4 hair follicles.
Dr. Christine Shaver recently spoke with the Truth about Hair Restoration, an online community of over 26,000 people seeking answers about hair loss.
In this video Dr. Bernstein demonstrates the simultaneous robotic excision and manual extraction of individual hair follicles using the ARTAS 9x Robotic Hair Transplant System. The video highlights new features of the ARTAS Robot that make hair transplant procedures faster and more efficient.
Bernstein Medical patient explains where his hair loss journey began and how he discovered Dr. Bernstein. He provides a detailed account of his hair restoration process, and discusses his experience.
Dr. Bernstein demonstrates how he places the tensioner on the patient in a robotic hair transplant procedure. The tensioner is a plastic picture frame-like device that adds tension to the patient’s scalp allowing for improved harvesting. It also has little dots, called fiducials, on its outer border which the robot “reads” for proper orientation. The robot scans the edges of the tensioner, reads the dots, and uses them to orient the robotic arm and punch tool.
Dr. Bernstein and Spencer Kobren, of The Bald Truth, talk about another seldom-discussed advantage of the ARTAS Robotic Hair Transplant System, namely how the robot brings transparency to FUE hair transplant procedures. The robot accumulates data on each action taken for the operating physician and also sends the information to Restoration Robotics for analysis. While the data helps Restoration Robotics improve each successive iteration of the robot, it also adds an extra layer of validity to clinics’ claims about procedures performed at their facility. This is in contrast to manual FUE where there is no third party monitoring or validation.
Dr. Bernstein appears on The Bald Truth where he discusses the advantages of creating recipient sites prior to follicular unit harvesting in an FUE hair transplant procedure. By allowing recipient sites to begin healing, “pre-making” the sites helps avoid graft popping and potentially reduces mechanical injury during graft insertion.
Dr. Bernstein demonstrates how he harvests follicular units below the occipital protuberance in the donor area on the back of the scalp using Robotic FUE techniques and describes how he positions the patient enabling the ARTAS® Robotic Hair Transplant System to harvest from the lower portion of the donor area.
Dr. Bernstein appeared as a guest on The Bald Truth, where he was interviewed by Spencer Kobren, the show’s host, about the ARTAS® Robotic System for FUE hair transplant surgery and the latest updates to the robotic system. He also discussed increasing demand for both FUE procedures and hair transplants, in general, around the world.
Dr. Bernstein was interviewed by Spencer Kobren on The Bald Truth, the critically acclaimed broadcast on hair loss and hair restoration. They discussed the latest in robotic hair transplant surgery, the ARTAS Robotic System, FUE and FUT hair transplant procedures, and the future of hair restoration.
The follicular unit extraction (FUE) procedure consists of four steps: the separation of follicular units from the surrounding tissue, the removal of follicular units from the scalp, the creation of recipient sites, and the placement of follicular units into these sites. The first step is performed by the ARTAS robotic hair transplant system – the part of the FUE procedure requiring the greatest precision and that is most subject to human error.
Q: How is robotic FUE different at Bernstein Medical compared to other practices?
A: The ARTAS robot assists in the first part of the follicular unit extraction procedure: separating the follicular unit from the surrounding tissue. The rest of the hair restoration procedure is done manually. Once follicular units are removed from the scalp they need to be trimmed prior to implantation, recipient sites need to be created, and the grafts must be placed in them – a time consuming, delicate process.
Because we are highly skilled in microscopic dissection, we are able to produce the highest quality grafts. In addition, all the other aspect of the procedure, including the long-term planning and design will be performed with the same high standards. With respect to the actual robot at Bernstein Medical, we use smaller instruments that result in less wounding to the scalp, it promotes faster healing time, and it improves the appearance of the donor area. We also have our computer programed to select the larger follicular units to obtain more hair with less wounds (holes) in the donor area – ultimately achieving a better cosmetic result.
Dr. Bernstein discusses how FUE instrumentation has evolved from the hand held follicular unit extraction punch to automated robotic follicular extraction.
The ARTAS Robotic System uses a small, window-like device called a tensioner to help hold the scalp in place and to help guide the 3D optical technology that locates and extracts follicular units.
In Part 3 of our video series on Robotic FUE hair transplants, Dr. Bernstein narrates as he and his team first prepare the patient for graft harvesting and then conduct the follicular unit extraction process using the ARTAS Robotic Hair Transplant System.
Dr. Bernstein and Restoration Robotics use the facility at Bernstein Medical to demonstrate recipient site creation with the ARTAS System.
In Part 2 of our video series on Robotic FUE hair transplantation, Dr. Bernstein describes the manual recipient site creation process in detail. Included is an explanation why, in FUE procedures, recipient sites are created before the follicular unit grafts are extracted from the donor area.
In Part 1 of our three-video series on Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE) at Bernstein Medical, Dr. Bernstein walks us through the preparation of the patient’s donor area in advance of a Robotic FUE procedure. This includes shaving the hair in the donor area to 1-mm in length and administering anesthetic for the patient’s comfort during the robotic hair transplant procedure.
Dr. Bernstein answers a question about whether or not Robotic FUE procedures increase the number of hair transplant candidates.
Dr. Bernstein answers a question about Robotic FUE hair transplants in women and whether or not the procedure can benefit women as much as it does men.
Dr. Bernstein discusses one of the benefits of Robotic FUE hair restoration procedures, namely, the wide range of physical activities that the patient can perform almost immediately after the hair transplant.
Dr. Bernstein answers a frequently asked question about Robotic FUE procedures and whether or not they speed up the procedure.
Follicular Unit Extraction has come a long way since Dr. Bernstein first described the hair transplant procedure in medical literature in his 2002 publication, “Follicular Unit Extraction,” published in the journal Dermatologic Surgery. In this video, Dr. Bernstein discusses the transition from hand-held extraction instruments to the computer-driven, image-guided ARTAS® System for FUE.
Dr. Bernstein appeared in a segment covering the topic of robotic hair transplantation, on the popular medical talk show “The Doctors” on CBS. He spoke about the labor-intensive task of manual methods of Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE) and how the ARTAS Robotic System for FUE improves on these methods in its ability to maintain precision throughout a procedure that requires thousands of repetitive motions.
Dr. Bernstein walks us through a Robotic FUE hair transplant procedure at Bernstein Medical – Center for Hair Restoration in this audio Q&A.
Dr. Bernstein was featured in a CBS News report on robotic hair transplantation. In the segment, they discuss the difference between FUT and FUE hair transplants, how the robotic system works, and the benefits of extracting hair follicles using robotic FUE.
NY1, a television station based in New York City, visited Bernstein Medical to see a demonstration and talk about the newest tool in the hair restoration toolkit, the ARTAS Robotic FUE hair restoration system. The segment, which featured Dr. Bernstein as he used the machine to perform follicular unit extraction, showed the robotic system in action, complete with views of the robotic arm, the image-guided system, the punch tool, and the user interface.
Dr. Bernstein was interviewed by Bloomberg TV’s Matt Miller about robotic hair transplantation and the future of hair transplant surgery in a segment called, “The Bald Economy: Surgical Solutions to Hair Loss.”
In this clip, Dr. Bernstein discusses the ARTAS system for Robotic FUE and describes why having a computer-driven, image-guided robot is so helpful for hair transplantation.
Is FUE Hair Transplant Painless, Non-Surgical? In this video Q&A clip, Dr. Bernstein dispels a couple of myths about Follicular Unit Extraction and compares FUE hair transplant surgery to Follicular Unit Transplantation (FUT). Watch Dr. Bernstein’s video response.
In this interview, Dr. Bernstein discusses robotic graft selection with Spencer Kobren, the host of ‘The Bald Truth’ radio program. Fewer wounds in the donor area means a better aesthetic appearance after surgery. But there is another benefit that is seldom discussed: Quality Control.
