Reflecting upon this year’s ISHRS World Congress

I guess I just repeat myself a lot when talking about these meetings, but I have to say it every time: the ISHRS World Congress is always amazing for me! I just love it. You get to see your friends, hang out and talk about hair the whole time (but not just hair, of course). There are a lot of discussions, ideas and “pearls” floating around the whole time. It’s just a privilege and I’m so happy that I get to be part of it all!

This year was special for me. The congress was held in my home country - Portugal. And I got to be the go to guy (or one of them) for my friends to find cool places to visit and stuff to do. Actually, some are still visiting as I write this. There’s just this pride I take in sharing my culture and our way of life with people from around the world. I can’t get enough of it. 

April 25th Bridge by night.

There’s of course, the “elephant in the room”, i.e., COVID-19. 

Yes, this was a smaller meeting than usual due to a lot of us not being able to come, but also an awesome win for us since we were having trouble figuring out if we’d be able to do it when we first started discussing it. Fortunately everything went without a hitch and I’m happy to say that there were no reported incidents during the meeting. A lot of work went into planning and I’m delighted with the result.

Respecting safe distancing. It was a very big auditorium with lots of space.

I had the honor of being part of the scientific planning committee and sharing my thoughts and ideas, as well as offering my help and collaboration in what I could be of assistance. Of course, being a local and Portuguese native allowed me to get quick updates, especially about COVID-related rules and guidelines. But I must say that Melanie Stancampiano, the Programs Director did such a good job that that made me almost redundant. Haha 

During out panel discussion. Left to right: Dr. Washenik, Dr. Nader, Dr. Zontos, Dr. Harris and myself.

Scientifically, this was a super interesting congress. Dr. Marie Schambach, Program Chair, did a stellar job and there were a lot of insightful moments with great interactions. She’s a great doctor who has brought a lot to the scientific community, thus she had set her own bar pretty high. And she totally nailed it! Congratulations to her.

I’ll talk more about the news in the scientific part of things in a later post.

As for me, I played a small part this year in the discussions as a panelist. They always feel too short when you’re up there and you always want to do more. But that’s how it goes. Time is of the essence and we need to keep the “show” on time. Needless to say that I’m super happy about the invitation and I hope I brought something useful to the discussions with my contribution.

The customary “poster” photo with myself, Dr. Pinto, Dr. Junior and Dr. Costa

And of course, it was fun! I spoke to many great people and I made new friends and acquaintances during these days. I really appreciate those of you who took the initiative of coming to introduce yourselves to me. I am honored that you enjoy my work and I hope I’ve offered something useful to you in our chats.

We also got to share some “quality time”, going for dinner and drinks. Being it “hittin’ the town” (;D), at the cocktail reception or the Gala Dinner. It’s so much fun! I sometimes almost have to pinch myself to believe that this is my life. And I’ve missed this. I’ve missed it a lot…

And now, I’m taking a couple days off to relax a bit. But I am super Pumped to get back into that O.R. and smash some amazing results for my patients! Got some amazing ideas out of this meeting (all written down of course) and you’ll be benefiting from those really soon.

Until next time,

PS: Oh, and look at how skillful these doctors are! :P As pointed out by Dr. Mejia, here’s a before and after:

Before

After :p

4th World FUE Institute Workshop - Avignon, France

Last month was the 4th International World FUE Institute 2019 Workshop. A special one for me, since it was one of the workshops that I’ve participated the most in, giving two presentations and performing live surgery. 

The setting for this year’s workshop was Avignon, in France. Quite a beautiful little town in the Provence with a lot of history. Weather was terrific and although we still have to work a lot during these conferences, it feels great to breakout of the routine and visit a wonderful new place, enjoy the weather and the local cuisine, and of course, see our dear friends and colleagues. 

The Avignon Carousel.

It’s funny how similar to school conferences can be. You have the presentations (class) usually very early in the morning with at least one planned coffee-break (recess) where people get to hang-out, so to speak, while hunting down their coffee amidst the crowd that inevitably forms. There are, of course the ones who sneak out just before the recess to get their coffee quicker. And there’s also the social events (basically when you go out with your friends from school), which tend to be when everyone lets loose a bit and has some fun.

Dr. Alejandro Chueco and I.

Dr. Rahal and me probably laughing at something silly while Dr. Muresanu was certainly actually saying something interesting.

As I was saying at the beginning of this post, it was a huge honor and pleasure to attend this workshop as a faculty member. I really enjoyed myself up there during the presentations and how well everyone responded to them. These were done in collaboration with my friend and colleague Dr. José Lorenzo, who keeps coming up with interesting concepts that push forward our understanding of this field.

It’s very tiring as you might imagine. We don’t get as much sleep as a normal work week. There’s just too much stimulus, too much to do, people to see again and catch up with, early lectures to attend to, late dinners and a drink or two. Mind you, I’m not complaining at all. In the end you take with you all the knowledge you shared, all the news you hadn’t caught up with yet, all the laughs and memories that we’ll remember for years to come…and of course, a fresh new injection of oxygen to make your fire for this field burn hotter and brighter than ever.

During one of my presentations.

That’s the cool thing about these meetings. The first thing I want to do after they’re finished is to get inside the O.R. and do surgery to try all the new tips and tricks shared during the workshops, all the gadgets I might’ve brought with me and all the little refinements I realized during the meeting.

Learning from my colleagues.

Now, make no mistake, there’s room for play too, and doctors and staff do play hard as well. Especially at the gala dinner, which is when the workshop is wrapped up, all the work is done and people are ready to partyyy!

This year’s gala dinner was at the lovely Chateau Pont Royal. A beautiful estate with a lot of charm and an amazing sunset in the field. I definitely regretted not bringing my camera, but still took some incredible shots with my iPhone. We had a field day (see what I did there? :P) taking photos with the team. I’ll leave a few photos here.

Gala Dinner.

Extracting at the Workshop.

As Faculty for this year’s workshop, I had the privilege of performing live surgery to demonstrate my extraction and implantation techniques. That meant waking up at an ungodly hour. Haha Fortunately the patient was a really nice guy, very collaborative and I did my best to make him as comfortable as possible when there were so many people going in and out of the room to have a look. He didn’t speak a word of English, so I had to brush up on my French. 

It felt really good for me. I’ve always admired the doctors who showed their skills at these workshops and now I get to be one of them. The surgery itself went really well and I think the patient will end up with a great result. He was a really good sport, so shoutout to him.

Focus. Implanting at the Workshop.

Discussing our plan for the patient with Dr. Lorenzo.

The last ones to leave the clinic. It was a long day, as you can probably tell. From left to right: myself, Ana, Dr. José Lorenzo, Dr. Jerry Wong, Bea, Lorena, Cristina. Behind the camera: Mike Etienne.

All in all, it was a great little week and I’m already looking forward to next year’s workshop in Istambul, Turkey.

But first, we have the ISHRS World Congress in Bangkok, Thailand. And I’m sure that will be incredible as well.

Until next time!