The maths nobody does before booking.

Quick answer: A hair transplant takes most of a day, so one surgeon can only do one or two. If you look up how many procedures a clinic does and divide it by the number of surgeons, you'll get a rough idea of how much of your procedure a doctor will do themselves. It's how most large clinics work, and it's fine, but hardly anyone tells you.

Before my first hair transplant, I watched loads of videos, read loads of websites and compared loads of prices. But I never once thought about how many hours there are in a day.

How long it actually takes

A hair transplant isn't quick. There's the consultation, designing your hairline, the anaesthetic, taking out each graft, making the tiny incisions where they'll go, and then placing them one at a time. That's most of a working day, and bigger cases take even longer.

So one surgeon, doing the job properly, can only do one, maybe two procedures a day. That's just how long the work takes.

Now do the sum

Take any clinic you're looking at and find the number they advertise, like procedures per year or patients treated. It's usually on their homepage, because it's meant to reassure you.

Then find out how many surgeons they have. That's usually on their website too, often with photos.

When you do this sum for a real clinic, you're just working out something the clinic already knows but hasn't told you: how much of your procedure a doctor will actually do.

Two different jobs, one photo

This usually isn't anyone lying. It's more that one job title can mean two different things.

Both are real jobs and a clinic needs both. But when a doctor's face is all over a website, most people assume that doctor will be doing their procedure, and that's not always the case.

Where technicians come in

In most hair transplant clinics, in Turkey and everywhere else, technicians do a lot of the hands-on work. That's normal, and it isn't a problem on its own. A technician who has been placing grafts every day for years might actually do it better than a surgeon who only does it now and then.

So it's not really about whether technicians are involved, because they almost always are. These are the questions that really help:

• Which parts do they do? Placing grafts into incisions a surgeon has already made is very different from making those incisions. The incisions decide the angle, direction and thickness of your hair, and your hairline. That's where your result is really decided.
• Who trained them, and how long have they been doing it? "Highly experienced team" doesn't tell you much. A number of years does.
• Is the surgeon in the room? I mean actually in the room for the important parts, not just in the building.
• How many patients are being treated at the same time? A doctor looking after three procedures at once can't give you the same attention as one looking after just you.

Just to let you know, a busy clinic can still be a really good clinic. It usually means a larger, experienced team is doing more of the hands-on work, and for lots of people that works really well.

What to ask, and what a good answer sounds like

Here are three questions I'd ask in writing, before you pay a deposit.

• Who performs my consultation, hairline design, extraction and implantation? Ask whether it's the surgeon, a doctor or a technician, and how experienced they are.
• Will the surgeon be present for the incisions?
• How many procedures does the clinic perform in a day?

A good answer is clear and specific. Something like: the doctor does the consultation, the hairline design and the incisions, and a team of technicians with a set number of years' experience does the extraction and placement under supervision. That clinic has told you exactly what happens.

A bad answer usually dodges the question. Things like "our medical team", "all our staff are trained professionals" or "Dr X oversees every procedure" sound reassuring, but they don't actually tell you who's doing what.

And if a clinic won't answer at all, that tells you everything you need to know.

Why I didn't do this myself

I'm a registered nurse, and I'd worked in this industry for years before I booked my own procedure. But I still chose my first clinic based on their website and the price, because the results looked good and everyone was really friendly.

It never crossed my mind to ask who'd actually be doing the work. Clinics don't really encourage that question, and once you've decided you like a clinic, you stop looking for reasons not to.

That procedure failed. It left permanent scarring across the back of my head, which meant the surgeon who fixed it had less to work with than the one who caused the problem.

The second time, I asked all three questions in writing before I paid anything. That was the big difference between the two.

How I use this with my own clinics

It would be easy to write all this and not follow it myself. So just to be clear, every clinic I work with has to answer these questions in writing before you book, and I ask them myself before a clinic goes on my site.

If I ever tell you a clinic meets my standard, feel free to ask me to show you what they said. If I can't, please don't just take my word for it.

Frequently asked questions

This is general information, not medical advice. Every case is different and a qualified clinician should assess yours.