 I
finally arrived in Charlotte after a long day of
flying around the United States.
After
arriving I
took a scenic tour of the area. Carolina
Dermatology, Dr Cooley's clinic, is located in
a Charlotte suburb called Pineville which was was
literally two minutes from my hotel room. After
some exploring I went back to the hotel for a good
nights rest before the next day of surgery.
The
following morning I arrived at Carolina Dermatology
around 8:30 AM and met Dr. Cooley and his staff.
I had first met Dr. Cooley at the Aegean Masters
meeting in Greece and he had been very helpful.
It was nice to see him again. Dr. Cooley
gave me a brief tour of the facility and shortly
after the patient arrived right on schedule.
Dr
Cooley completed the pre-op work and then moved
straight into surgery. The surgery went without
a hitch and I did my best to stay out of everyone's
way while still getting high quality photos and
video of the entire process.
In
the operating room everything went like clockwork.
This was the second repair procedure for the
patient, but Dr. Cooley was unable to combine the
first scar since his first surgeon had cut the
scar too low. The staff was very comfortable working
together and everything was quiet and relaxed throughout
the day. We enjoyed watching Forrest Gump on video
and the patient quizzed me on how much I knew about
some of the hair loss scams on the market. Dr. Cooley
used a combination of pre-punching recipient sites
and stick and place technique for graft placement
and uses 1 or 2 graft placers to assist him during
the placement process. Dr. Cooley is in the room
for the duration of the procedure from the strip
dissection and graft placement.
During
one of our breaks I was able to interview Dr. Cooley's
graft cutter and administrative assistant Ailene.
At the end of the procedure I was able to interview
Dr. Cooley about his work with Intercytex and his
thoughts on different methods of hair transplant
surgery. Dr. Cooley stays at the forefront of technology
and is involved with research into
Hair Cloning/Multiplication with a company called
Intercytex which plans to begin human trials in the
summer of 2004.
My entire stay in the Charlotte area was quite
enjoyable. The people in this southern state were
warm and exceptionally friendly everywhere I went. |
