"Your hair restoration deserves an experienced  plastic surgeon."

Dr. Duncan Brown's Hair Transplantation Center
Healing Ziona's Trauma

Ziona Smith is the brave, little 12-year-old girl from South Africa, who at the age of seven lost the entire top of her scalp when attacked by two dogs in South Africa. At that time in her native land, there was no one available to restore her hair. Her only choice was a simple skin graft.

	Dr. Brown and Ziona after her first hair transplant. She will return for further transplants.

Fortunately,  Ziona made contact over the Internet with another young girl. This girl from Kentucky had lost a significant portion of her scalp in a car accident. She told Ziona how her plastic surgeon, Dr. Duncan Brown, had restored her scalp and hair. "Ziona came to the office in which I was working in Chicago," remembers Dr. Brown. "After a consultation I did a trial with a limited number of hair grafts. This was a success according to Ziona and her parents." They subsequently came to Spokane in March of 2001 and had a larger number of grafts done.

As one can imagine, Ziona now wants to get the entire scalp area covered as quickly as possible. "[But] we are limited by the availability of donor hair and the need to allow time between procedures to see the grafts mature," explains Dr. Brown. "This is more important in Ziona's case than in a simple cosmetic loss because we are dealing with placing the grafts into a skin graft, which is very much thinner than normal scalp skin. This necessitates placing the grafts further apart each time to ensure adequate blood supply." Dr. Brown says that because Ziona has a limited amount of donor hair, "we must be careful not to over stress this vital resource."

Ziona returned to Spokane on the 1st of December for additional hair. She had had some growth of the grafts that were placed on March 27. "We are a little early in doing another procedure; however, she is only 12 and time goes slowly at that age," says Dr. Brown. "The grafts from March were still in their infancy but have given us a good point to determine where the next set should be placed. Again she was a real little trouper, allowing us to insert the local anesthesia for both the donor site and recipient area with out so much as a whimper."

Ziona would like this to be her last procedure. Unfortunately, she will require at least two more procedures to attain optimal results. Also, she will be unable to return to the area for at least three years due to family and schooling commitments — and the considerable cost of airline tickets. "This time will allow all we have done up to this point to mature. Additionally, she will have had a chance to grow, and we will be able to determine exactly where the hairline should be on the adult skull." Dr. Brown and his staff hope to have Ziona to the point where she can go in public with out covering her head with anything but her own hair, hopefully by the time she is 19 years old. It's a time that Ziona and her family look forward to.

Article Published in Spokane & Coeur d'Alene Magazine of the Inland Northwest
Volume 4 Issue 1, January-February 2002