Hair Transplants as Art: Dr. Anderson’s Journey from Artist to Surgeon

Hi, my name is Dr. Ken Anderson. I’m the founder and chief of surgery here at Anderson Center for Hair and board certified hair restoration surgeon. So, I’ve been asked, how did I become a hair restoration surgeon?

Well, it all started back when I was a child. I was that kid in class who was always drawing. My Christmas gifts were like little mechanical pen sets.

Art was my thing. And I was a kind of exploring different options by just asking some people what they thought about my choice, you know, neighbors, friends, of the family, adults really. And I one day I was thinking about being a doctor.

You know, I thought that might be an interesting thing to do. You see it on TV, sounds cool. And so I asked a family friend.

I said, you know, he he’s a he’s a doctor. And I I said, ’You know, I’m thinking about becoming a doctor, but I don’t know what type I would be. Like, what do you what do you think about that?

And he said, ’Well, he asked me a question, and the question he asked me changed my life forever. He asked me, he said, "Are you get any good at art? Can you draw?" And I was I couldn’t believe he asked me that question.

I said, "Yes, that’s kind of my thing. I’m really good at it. I I love it." And he said, ’Well, you should be a plastic surgeon.

You’d be good at it. And in my mind, I’m thinking, it’s done. It was like written in the sky.

I’m going to be a plastic surgeon. I had no idea that you could be a doctor and an artist. I just had no idea.

And so, really, every decision I made along the way throughout my life from about the age of 14 was was geared towards becoming a plastic surgeon. And that’s what I did. So I ended up going to medical school at the University of Pittsburgh after I graduated from Penn State University, you know, with honors and all that.

I ended up matching in a residency for otoarangology, head and neck surgery or ENT surgery at the University of Michigan. And then I did a fellowship in facial plastic and reconstructive surgery also at the University of Michigan under the direction of Dr. Shan Baker. Both very very highly acclaimed topshelf programs.

At the end of my fellowship, I had kind of done what they tell all the fellows not to do, and I kind of put all my eggs in one basket for one job. It ended up being with a a for-profit health care system in Denver. That fell through.

So, I found myself done with my fellowship. I’d never seen a hair transplant, and I just someone had presented a grand rounds about it at some point in my residency. So I thought, you know, with this extra time that I have now, I ought to go, I don’t know, just check one out.

And so I I hit up Dr. M Martin Tesler in suburban Detroit and went and spent two weeks with him and it was fascinating. You know, I noticed a couple of things. One, the major thing were were how happy the patients were.

I mean, he had some returning patients with their new hair, and I’d see a lot of you know, patients come back, my own patients with after a nose job or or some eyelid surgery, and they were happy. But, you know, these patients that I saw in Dr. Tesler’s office were just it was like a it was transformational. They were elated.

And that that caught my attention. Dr. Tesler said, "You should you should go to the you know, the big worldwide annual meeting. It’s the International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery is the the world’s largest educational group for hair restoration.

And the meeting that year happened to be in New York City. This is 2003. And so I went to that meeting.

I noticed a couple of things there. I noticed number one that I was the only facial plastic surgeon on planet Earth at that meeting. Because you don’t have to be a facial plastic surgeon to do hair restoration.

You could be any any background. Number two, the technology had just changed from it used to be a pluggy outcome. You used to look like dolls here, but right around the turn of the century, dissection microscopes were introduced into the specialty and now they were separating out every follicle from their sister or brother and it was really kind of a one hair at auh time transplant and the results looked perfectly natural.

And the third thing I noticed is there was a job offer in Beverly Hills, California with one of the godfathers of the specialty, Dr. Bill Raspman. I mean, Dr. Raspman gave most of the 8-hour introductory course at the meeting and at that during his lectures, I I I remember I took 64 pages of notes because I was like, this is absolutely fascinating. And so I interviewed with Dr. Rasman at the meeting and I was accepted for the job.

And so, I started my career off, in Beverly Hills, California. And that’s, it’s been what, well over 20 years now. And the happy patients that I saw at Dr. Tesler’s office, I see in my office here, week in and week out, it’s it’s delightful.

When that doctor told me that I would be good at plastic surgery if I was good at art, he’s correct. Okay. I think that growing up if you’re drawing a lot as a child I think the brain pathways that control fine motor movement and judgment are hypertrophied and get really strong but I as a child I confused I thought that doing the plastic surgery would feel like I was doing art that that was that was incorrect you know doing a rhinoplasty or a nose job it did not feel to me like an artistic endeavor it felt like I it very tedious you know it was really tedious, kind of stressful endeavor.

Same with eyelid surgery. I wasn’t it didn’t really get my creative juices going. I didn’t I don’t know it was satisfying but not great.

When I started doing hair transplant surgery with Dr. Raspen, the act of making the recipient sights, you know, that the the hairline, controlling the density and the angles of the hairs, that felt exactly like I was creating a stipple art drawing, which was like a drawing just with dots. And I felt like I was creating a little work of art. And it still does.

I I I’m blessed to have a career where I get I come come into the office and create create art every day. I get that feeling like I did as a kid drawing that, you know, it it’s very satisfying to me and I I really enjoy it and you know, the happy patients and the great team I have around me here at Anderson Center for Hair, you know, it just make it a delightful career. It raised a lot of eyebrows at the University of Michigan.

It’s a very good ENT program. And then I did the fellowship. You know, there’s only like 30 facial plastic surgery fellowships in the United States.

And so I was one of 30 doctors nationwide. And I was going into hair transplant in 2003. That was unheard of.

And so I was questioning myself a little bit. I’m thinking, man, that, you know, am I doing the right thing? And then I met I can’t say his name, but I met a patient, one of my first, you know, 50 patients.

He was a 77year-old man and very stoic guy. Didn’t have a lot of hair, but his hair was white like my coat. And he said to me, and very seriously, he took out of his nice blazer, he took out a picture and he said, "Dr. Anderson, this is what I’m going for." And he pushed across a picture of young Elvis.

And I said, "We will do it." And so I did his hair transplant surgery. And a year later, you know, I was things were going great in Beverly Hills. I was enjoying it, you know, but I had that nagging thought like, is am I really doing the right thing?

Cuz at that at that point the specialty of hair restorerian surgery had not taken off and that gentleman came back to me the the following year with a a white pompador and he was so proud of it and he sat down. I said, "Well, how you know how do you like your hair? How?" And he said, "Dr. Anderson, I want to tell you something." I said, "What is it?" He said, "This is the best thing that has ever happened to me.

I I’ll never forget it. I said, "Sir, that’s magnanimous. Like, you have grandchildren.

You know, you’re 78 years old." You know, and I tried to talk him out of his his opinion. But no, he he’s like, "No, I’m quite serious about this." And, you know, I’ve I’ve I’ve seen, you know, like I said, you do an eyelid surgery or a nose job or fa patients are happy. But is it the best thing that’s ever happened to I had never heard another patient say that in my facial plastic surgery fellowship and he was you know it was it can be so transformational and I realized that the gift of being able to give someone back their hair it’s like giving someone back a bit of their youth and it can change lives it really can it brings such an a vast amount of happiness to patients that that I was hooked personally and then to see over the you know 20 plus years the whole specialty kind of blow up.

I kind of thought it would I really sort of recognized it as an emerging market within cosmetic surgery because of that important change in technology with the introduction of of microscopes. Now it was a single hair transplant at a time that was right around the year 2000 as I mentioned. So it’s it’s been a wonderful journey.

I’m I’m truly blessed and and thankful and grateful. This is a fantastic career. I love it every day.

I love my patients, my staff, and I could not be happier.