Rick
Dr. John Cole's Patient - May 02, 2003 Surgery

Note: this is a strip procedure testimonials, not FUE

The hotel that Dr. Cole’s office has a deal with is the Wellesley Inn (3329 Old Milton Hwy). With the discount given to Cole patients, rooms are $49 a night. When I called to make my reservation, the guy working the phone told me he didn’t know about any discount and hadn’t heard of Dr. Cole or his office. I told him we’d work it out when I got there. Since Dr. Cole’s office needs to know where you’re going to be staying, I called Ingrid (more on her later) and mentioned that the guy at the desk said he was unaware of a discount. She told me she’d look into it, called him and apparently jumped on him with both feet, called me back, and all was well. She mentioned that he had an “attitude”, but she squared him away. When I arrived Thursday at midnight, the same guy was working. She’s right. He does have an attitude. I think he thinks *Ingrid* has an attitude, too. LOL! Here’s the deal about the hotel. It’s a place to sleep. That’s it. It’s not posh, so don’t expect overly anything fancy. For me, it was great. For you overly pampered guys, stay someplace like The Embassy Suites.

Since I traveled alone, Ingrid had to come to the hotel and pick me up before the procedure and drop me off afterward. I had a feeling from talking to her on the phone that she was going to be an attractive girl. I'm not sure why I thought so, but I was right; She was. She’s also a blast to talk with. I knew I’d like her when she told me to make sure to eat before the procedure because “we wouldn’t want you to puke or anything.” Ah, that North Eastern gentility. Ha ha! She also has a theory on “man years” that I have to agree with…AND she remodels! I think I have a crush on her, but it’s just too darn far to drive... She *is* a lot of fun, though. She also has a *flawless* ability to talk to a man who has a line drawn on or a quadrillion holes poked in his head and never once look up at them. sigh That’s it. I’m movin’ to Georgia...

The fact is, though, the whole staff is great. They are *seriously* a hard working bunch. They and Dr. Cole put in 7+ hours on me, much longer than was anticipated (because it was decided I needed more grafts to achieve the result I was after). They really made every effort to put me at ease and make me comfortable. They’re very friendly and easy-going. I especially appreciated the humor in John Dabbs’ attempting to convince me not to chase women for a few days. Something about the look on my face apparently made him feel the need to emphasize his seriousness on the matter - if I had a weird look on my face (other than the one that’s usually there), it was only at the notion that a guy with a bunch of tiny holes in his head would hope to enjoy much success picking up girls. Patrick Mwamba was also a very friendly guy. He actually did quite a bit of the graft placement, working alongside Dr. Cole and, for a while, solo. There was a third guy there that got me a burger and fries, but I don’t think I ever heard his name. He and John Dobbs did the separating of the follicular units (along with Patrick, I think). By the way, I should mention in passing that these guys were all good-looking, so you may want to leave your girlfriends at home. ;o)

As for Dr. Cole, I've heard him described as “laid back”, and to some extent he really is. But, he is also *extremely* serious about the HT procedure itself (which, as a patient, is exactly what I want). For example, if he wasn't happy with the way the follicular units looked when he received them from the techs, he said so in a no-nonsense way and gave them back to be trimmed down further. He clearly puts a lot of serious thought into what he’s doing. I’m a hair transplant veteran (unfortunately), and I don’t remember anything like the attention to detail that I saw Dr. Cole give last night. If I had to sum up Dr. Cole briefly, I would say he is a very empathetic, highly skilled, extremely generous, artistically-talented perfectionist with an occasionally dry sense of humor.

The long an short of it is this: If a man came to me and told me he was considering a hair transplant and needed a recommendation, the words would scarcely be out of his mouth before I responded “John Cole.” My experience there and my results so far have exceeded not only my *expectations*, but also my hopes.

Best wishes,
Rick
Read Rick's post in Hair Transplant Forum