ISHRS Member Hair Transplant Surgeons in Turkey: A Guide to Excellence and Expertise

For the past two decades, one common part we see patients struggle the most about is ensuring that they find the right clinic.

Finding the right questions to ask about hair transplants is hard already.

But how do you also ensure your clinic gives the correct answers?

Simple

By using the gold standard of hair transplant surgeries: Finding an ISHRS member surgeon/clinic.

If your chosen doctor is at least ISHRS approved, you can also approve to your conscience that you are trusting the right decision in the right people.

So, let’s talk about that decision.

In this article, we will answer all the questions about being an ISHRS member surgeon, such as why they are essential and how they are different.

Let’s start with the obvious question:

What is ISHRS, and why is it so important?

For every potential hair transplant patient, deciding to undergo surgery requires some sort of insurance.

We know that surfing through the web for many nights and using temporary topical solutions do not always give the exact results you want.

👉 At this point, any patient would be stressed and vulnerable enough to look for ANY permanent solution to reverse the hair loss.

That is why ISHRS exists.

To protect patients from unprofessional, low-quality clinics, ISHRS works to bring a set of standards.

Found in 1993 by hair transplant surgeons and dermatologists, ISHRS continuously updates and maintains a high standard for doctors and educates them to achieve it.

✅ As a global, non-profit medical organization, its sole objective for doing this is to provide patients with doctors they can trust.

But enough about promises; let’s focus on their actions.

Essentially, the importance of ISHRS comes from the three things it achieves:

  1. Holding actual professional clinics accountable.
  2. Spreading high-quality standards amongst dermatologists.
  3. Creating reliable hair transplant surgeons for patients.

We’ll explain each one thoroughly:

Understanding an ISHRS Membership is the key to spotting reliability.

ISHRS was founded by and is still run by leading hair transplant surgeons and dermatologists of their era.

Naturally, in the field of hair transplantations, it is one of the most significant and neutral authorities there is about hair restoration surgeries.

That is why an ISHRS Membership is a great supervisor for minimizing (intentional or not) hair transplant failures caused by doctors. 

⚠️ According to ISHRS research, the failure rate for hair transplants is %47. But more importantly, out of 32.000 hair transplant failures annually, 99% are performed without doctor involvement.

So, why does membership bring out a sense of reliability?

Because by being a high authority of hair transplant clinics, ISHRS demands a set of medical ethics to be an eligible member:

  • Members or fellows of ISHRS are the chief supervisors in their clinics that appear in every surgery.
  • And trying to scam a patient in any way, such as overpricing, ignoring them in post-op contact, or not giving information about their surgical team, would result in the surgeon/clinic losing their membership and credibility.

So, ultimately, for any patient unsure of which clinic to go to, ISHRS Members easily stand out from others regarding reliability.

ISHRS Membership achieves these incredible feats by promoting a high objective for the clinics that wish to be acknowledged by it and take their place amongst the best: 

Its only purpose is to promote professional standards and education in hair restoration surgery.

Doctors promoting professional standards

According to a research by ISHRS, it has more than 1.000 members across 70 countries.

🩺 Despite all their differences in experience, culture, and work conditions, their purpose stays the same: Ensuring that the service they provide to different patients stays the same quality.

The ISHRS achieves this purpose in three ways:

  1. It produces new scientific articles on baldness and hair transplantations that pioneer new techniques and methods. The leading and directing physicians of ISHRS also write the textbooks in the field and author the most important articles. Lastly, it provides the public with the latest updates on treatments for hair loss and makes these updates basic guidelines for all hair restoration surgeons in its Core Curriculum.
  2. It holds regular events worldwide to discuss topics and stay fresh such as the annual ISHRS World Congress. Thanks to these events, many global researchers in the field find support and recognition from the ISHRS towards their subject of hair restoration. So, these events also hold the potential for being recognized and getting accreditation from ISHRS.
  3. Perhaps most importantly, with direct support from ISHRS, many doctors get educated in the field with training programs. It has various training programs for this purpose, such as The ISHRS Fellowship Training Program. These programs provide future hair transplant surgeons with educational materials, online resources, and countless meetings, including lectures and surgical workshops.

Ultimately, ISHRS can prove that a surgeon meets its standards by either educating them directly or granting an accreditation.

However, these professional standards are the pinnacle of top-tier surgeries. So, they are not easy to achieve:

Naturally, some criteria and qualifications are required for hair transplant surgeons to become ISHRS members.

In each application made to ISHRS, the organization requires the same essential qualifications:

✅ ISHRS-approved doctors must be current and aware of advancements in hair transplant procedures, methods, and technology. 

✅ ISHRS-approved doctors must be experts in a field that is either dermatology or related/close to dermatology. So, being a dermatologist is a huge plus.

✅ ISHRS-approved doctors must not give false promises to the public or their patients, such as complete scarless or pain-free surgery. Minimizing is possible, but there is always some experience of discomfort. Doctors cannot lie about this.

✅ ISHRS-approved doctors must avoid illegal activities such as providing surgeries without doctor supervision or having technicians with no clear resume of experience in their clinic.

Quite interestingly, you should notice with simple field research overnight that so MANY clinics ignore most if not all of these requirements…

…which is why you should look for ISHRS member surgeons to entrust the future and health of your hair:

Why should I choose an ISHRS hair transplant surgeon in Turkey?

👉 Because diamond is always harder to find than copper.

Because many clinics and surgeons very commonly ignore these standards made by the ISHRS.

Turkey is one of the best countries in the world for hair transplantation due to lower costs, thanks to the current exchange rates and its world-renowned doctors

So, naturally, it has popular health tourism that constantly flourishes. 

And where there is opportunity, there are also risks: 

Quality is difficult to reach, and low-quality “hair mill” clinics are everywhere.

Nowadays, it is easy to stumble into cheap and low-quality “hair mill” clinics any day.

❌ These are the type of clinics that give very little information about their surgical team and perform their surgeries without any doctor involvement.

As we have mentioned, out of 650.000 hair transplants annually, 32.000 fail. And 99% of these failure scenarios are due to not having a doctor involved.

These rates are so high, and the clinics are so common that, on an average transplant of 4000 grafts, patients lose 800 to 1200 of their transplanted grafts.

Patients face challenges everyday

Naturally, patients who come to Turkey with the promise of cheaper hair transplant surgeries face three complex challenges:

  1. Not being able to see the so-called famous hair transplant doctor of a hair mill (The doctor allocates only 3 minutes to each patient, so what services do you pay for?) 
  2. Having the surgical parts done by a non-medical or technician (who doesn’t follow the literature and doesn’t know the best practices. And the worst of all, they can’t deal with serious complications). 
  3. Getting feedback or response from a clinic after paying the money and having the surgery done. (A patient is left alone with unofficial, invalid warranty certificates).

These challenges should not be the regrets you face after a wrong decision but the red flags you avoid.

That is why you should look for the same qualifications in the clinics that doctors themselves have to meet to become ISHRS members:

Here’s how you spot the right clinic with the ISHRS standards.

To recap what we have said earlier, your outstanding ISHRS members will be recognizable with:

Modern options they have in their clinics, such as Sapphire FUE, bio-enhanced transplants, needle-free sedative options, or stem cell hair transplants.

✅ The dermatologist at the site for supervising the quality standard.

An up-to-date website and blog that prevents misinformation, gives detailed information about their surgical team, tools, and methods, and also mentions the other qualifications above.

So, ultimately, the best way to spot them would be to check for an updating and constantly changing clinic website that presents the abilities of an ISHRS member.

If the clinic provides transparency and explains that they meet the ISHRS requirements, you will know you are on the right track.

Otherwise, you may stumble across a risky clinic that will prevent you from getting the benefits you are looking for:

What are the benefits of choosing an ISHRS member surgeon for hair transplant procedures in Turkey?

There are many we can count.

But essentially, choosing an ISHRS member surgeon for a hair transplant in Turkey ensures the most vital thing: Your safety.

👉 All surgeries, especially the ones connected to dermatology, carry some risk.

But this risk increases with external factors when undergoing surgery in a country famous in the field.

In this case, Turkey is amongst the most famous and prominent countries for hair restoration.

Due to having one of the cheapest hair transplant costs worldwide, Turkey also contains the risk of coming across a low-quality clinic.

This is where ISHRS membership comes in.

Because it manages to answer an age-old question: Are hair transplants in Turkey safe?

Yes. But only if you pay attention to the key points, one of which is the ISHRS membership and the qualifications it brings.

By making a clinic safe, ISHRS membership guarantees safety in two areas:

Full transparency in the clinic’s every detail to avoid external risks. 

ISHRS expects a constantly updated website that gives in-depth information about the clinic’s surgery process, methods in packages, and doctors. Only when these are met can the clinics put their proud ISHRS membership badge on the same website. 

So, seeing this badge and finding that the primary doctor of the clinic is an ISHRS member is your key to lowering any external risks to your surgery, such as entrusting your hair’s future to a low-quality clinic.

Minimizing the natural internal risks that exist in surgery. 

ISHRS member clinics achieve this in simple steps.

They consistently have their primary doctor as the supervisor that attends EVERY surgery.

That supervisor doctor is either a dermatologist or someone with a medical background leading to dermatology.

And lastly, these doctors must provide the patients with the most modern tools to increase the effectiveness of transplants.

🍀 These tools are constantly getting updates, so finding the clinic with the latest advancements can determine the future of your hair.

And as finding the right clinic is almost as hard as getting approved by the ISHRS, we thought of listing them all up with the right criteria:

Look no further for the highest quality. Click here to get a full list of the best:

See Hair Transplant Clinic’s PSR Scores

Ultimately, your benefits for choosing an ISHRS member for a hair transplant surgery in Turkey will be dodging hair mill clinics, not relying on unreliable and inattentive doctors, and saving your money from going down the drain.

But these benefits will occur only if you manage to find an ISHRS member, so let’s talk about how you can do that:

List of ISHRS Member Hair Transplant Surgeons in Turkey

Unsurprisingly, due to Turkey’s reputation in healthcare, there are many members, fellows, and associate members of ISHRS in the country.

But the number of low-quality clinics and backdoor doctors is so much higher than the ordinary rate of ISHRS members becomes rare.

That is why we need a tool for identifying and finding them:

How do you find one?

Typically, patients find doctors and clinics on their own through online searching. 

💡 So, if you find a clinic during your web surfing, we advise you to first look for the signs of an ISHRS member, as we have mentioned earlier.

But if you want to reach them directly, ISHRS can provide you with a better option.

On the official website of ISHRS, there is a page dedicated to listing all the associate members of ISHRS globally.

And also, the website lists all the fellows and member doctors of ISHRS worldwide on another page.

With that in mind, here is our list of the top 5 ISHRS member hair transplant surgeons in Turkey:

1- Dr. Ekrem Civas

Dr. Ekrem Civas

Dr. Ekrem Civas graduated from Dicle University Faculty of Medicine and completed his residency in dermatology in 1999. 

While working as a dermatologist at Numune Hospital, he opened his own office in 2003. And in 2007, he resigned from duty at Numune Hospital Dermatology Department to focus on his practice entirely.

Since then, he has worked as a dermatologist, doctor, and founder of Civas Hair Transplant Clinic. 

Dr. Civas is the first doctor and dermatologist in Turkey to be a fellow member of the ISHRS.

All of these qualifications are more than enough to put him among the best in his field. However, his clinic does not give exact transparency in its packages or pricing; instead, it grants the patients an average gap.

So, knowing how much Civas Clinic will cost you can be tricky.

✅ With that in mind, for the positive parts, Dr. Ekrem stands out with his reputation as the first to earn the badge of ISHRS in Turkey.

✅ He acts as both the supervising primary doctor and the dermatologist of his clinic.

✅ Due to his role, each patient sees their involvement in their surgeries.

❌ But, regarding cons, patients have difficulty knowing how costly their transplant will be until they have finished their consultation with the clinic and decided on the process.

Additionally, to get an even more comprehensive view, we added a before and after photo of a patient from the clinic’s website:

Civas Hair Transplant Patient

This 8 months post-surgery result belongs to a patient with a 3200 grafts hair transplant surgery.

The transplant looks good in the crown area, but the hairline might need a little more time to recover and grow.

The final judgment is yours. 🌱 

2- Dr. Utkan Kiziltac

Dr. Utkan Kiziltac

Dr. Utkan Kiziltac graduated from Istanbul Marmara University in 2012.

He participated in numerous hair transplant surgeries as an assistant doctor until 2017. After completing his training at Okmeydanı Training and Research Hospital, he became a dermatologist. 

From then on, he worked in prominent hospitals such as Medical Park Hospital until 2020, when he founded his clinic, UnitedCare.

Being an associate member of ISHRS and a World FUE Institute member is only a few of his credentials.

And aside from Dr. Ekrem Civas, he is currently one of just a few dermatologist hair transplant surgeons that exist in Turkey.

As his clinic’s chief doctor, supervisor, and dermatologist, Dr. Utkan’s membership in ISHRS stands out with his inclusiveness in each patient’s surgery.

However, despite transparency in other areas, such as his expertise or that of his surgical team, he leaves some questions in his pricing system. 

So, patients must apply for a quote/consultation to get the whole picture of their costs.

As positive parts, UnitedCare’s most significant difference is that Dr. Utkan accepts only one patient daily. That allows the surgical team to focus their whole energy and attention entirely on that single patient, which significantly increases effectiveness.

Speaking of increasing effectiveness, Dr. Utkan appears, supervises, and attends to each patient’s entire process. 

And it also helps that he is attending to each patient as a dermatologist.

❌ But, when we come to the cons, UnitedCare does not provide whole transparency in its pricing despite the in-depth information in every other area.

And to cover up the entire approach of UnitedCare, here is the before and after of one of their patients, Hasan:

UnitedCare Clinic Patient

This is an over 1-year-old post-surgery result.

And overall, the transplant looks satisfactory in most parts.

We leave the judgment to you. 🌱

UnitedCare also directly provides the personal success story of Hasan in his own words on their website’s hair transplant page.

3- Dr. Mehmet Erdogan

Dr. Mehmet Erdogan

Dr. Mehmet graduated from the Faculty of Medicine at Yeditepe University and worked in prominent hospitals such as Acibadem Hospital and Medicana. 

He is currently an ISHRS member. Also, he has other certifications in hair transplantation and medical aesthetics. In his career, he performed over 4000 hair transplants. 

He currently leads the Smile Hair Clinic as the chief doctor he co-founded in 2018 with Dr. Gokay Bilgin. 

However, despite being an expert hair transplant specialist, he is NOT a dermatologist. And despite being a significant factor in making the clinic reputable, some hair transplant candidates online complain about not getting a whole hair transplant operation done by him.

✅ So, as positive parts, Dr. Mehmet has an immense knowledge and reputation that brings him among Turkey’s most famous ISHRS member surgeons.

✅ He also provides in-depth transparency in his clinic, providing almost every piece of information about the clinic’s pricing, packages, and surgical team. 

❌ But, in terms of cons, his field of expertise in medicine is not dermatology, and he does not have a dermatologist in his clinic.

❌ And also, probably due to having other prominent surgeons in his clinic, he does not attend to every patient’s surgery.

Lastly, in addition to every good and bad side, we also brought a before and after of one of Dr. Mehmet Erdogan’s patients:

Smile Hair Clinic's Patient

This is Thomas from the UK. He is a 44-year-old with a hair loss of Scale III on the Norwood Scale, or at least, he was. The image above shows his post-surgery 12 months result of a hair transplant of 4650 grafts.

The overall results seem satisfactory in our terms, especially the hairline. 

Of course, with the results right under your hand, we leave the judgment to you. 🌱 

4- Dr. Emrah Cinik

Dr. Emrah Cinik studied medicine at Uludag University. In 2002, after graduating, he began working in aesthetic medicine and cosmetics within various hospitals in Bursa. 

In 2007, Dr. Emrah Cinik came to Istanbul and opened his own clinic, Dr. Cinik Hair Hospital.

Since then, he has worked in the field of plastic cosmetics, hair loss, and hair transplantation. For more than 15 years, Dr. Emrah Cinik has carried out over 10,000 hair transplants.

All these reasons are more than enough to make him one of the most prominent ISHRS member hair transplant surgeons in Turkey.

5- Dr. Resul Yaman

In 2005, Dr. Resul Yaman graduated from his medical school, Cerrahpasa Faculty of Medicine.

He started his career in 2008 when he began working as an assistant physician in hair transplantation. 

A few years later, he started performing surgeries himself. Since then, he has performed over a thousand successful hair transplant procedures and has 13 years of experience.

He is also famous for developing his own method of hair transplantation, the “modified low-speed micromotor” technique (Manual Punch FUE Technique).

With his keen personal interest in the hair restoration field and his specialized technique, Dr. Yaman is one of the most renowned ISHRS members in Turkey.

Ultimately, all the doctors listed above are excellent choices regarding reliability and expertise.

So, let’s put another factor into play: Their costs.

How much do ISHRS hair transplant surgeons cost in Turkey?

👉 For a hair transplant surgery in Turkey, the average price per Graft is $1.3, while the average price for 2000 Grafts is $2676.

In terms of its affordable costs, Turkey is easily the best worldwide.

The same 2000 grafts hair transplant costs $8050 in the UK, $13610 in the US, and $17500 in Canada.

So, although these countries also have renowned doctors in their fields, a 2000 graft surgery costs 4 to 8 times cheaper here in Turkey.

💡 This cheapness is due to the Turkish Lira’s global devaluation and the country’s competitive landscape.

So, this cheapness does not come from poor quality.

Instead, Turkey is home to top hair clinics globally and world-renowned and award-winning surgeons due to its rich hair transplantation and health tourism background.

However, ISHRS membership is a rare and precious asset. Therefore, these clinics will naturally cost more than the average.

Due to their differing numbers, getting an average number of only the ISHRS member clinics is difficult.

So, instead, we will provide you with the costs of our hand-picked top three doctors:

1- Dr. Utkan Kiziltac

The average price for a hair transplant surgery in UnitedCare is approximately 3000 euros.

However, due to the wide range of options they provide in terms of surgery techniques, they ask the patients to get a quote/consultation first instead of giving an average price, as this cost can vary greatly.

However, we promise that for an average hair transplant (usually within the limits of 2000 to 3000 grafts), we aim not to surpass 4500 euros because we see it as over expensive.

So, based on this average price range of €1500 to €4500 alone, UnitedCare costs almost 1.5 the amount of the average cost of Turkey.

👍 By balancing its high number of top-quality services and having the cheapest cost within the ISHRS member options, UnitedCare is the number one among the three.

2- Dr. Mehmet Erdogan

Smile Hair Clinic’s average price for its average package is 3290 euros.

The clinic has three packages with different services and costs, but the average package is the standard one.

Given this information, Smile Hair Clinic costs slightly more than 1.5 times the average in Turkey.

3- Dr. Ekrem Civas

For a hair transplant surgery in Civas Hair Transplant Center, the average price per Graft is €1.5, while the average price for 2000 Grafts is 3000 – 4800 euros.

As the clinic’s website explains, many factors could affect the price, such as your chosen technique or the number of grafts.

However, on average, Dr. Ekrem Civas’s services cost twice the average cost of Turkey, which is calculated by including the clinics that are not ISHRS approved.

👍 But ultimately, all these doctors are great options that stand out with their ISHRS membership and renowned clinics.

The fact that ISHRS approves them says more about their reliability, expertise, and high standards than any article comparing them.

And if you want to bring your great looks back to life, these are your best options for narrowing that number down from the countless number of clinics within the country.

So, deciding which to go for, based solely on their prices or other facts, would be a shame. You need and deserve more proof:

Find the best for you with our help 👇

The excellence and expertise that can only be achieved by the professional standards that ISHRS brings cannot be simply expressed.

You have to see it with your own eyes.

That is why we use our Price-Service-Result (PSR) framework containing 8 different qualifications for standing amongst the most renowned ISHRS clinics.

You have found the ISHRS-approved ones, don’t spend any more time comparing them. Click now to have the list do it for you:

Find the best hair transplant method and ISHRS approved clinic for you