Surgeon or technician: how to find out before you book

In most countries, including the US, only a licensed physician can legally make the incisions and place the grafts. Technicians can prepare and handle grafts and assist the surgical team, but the surgical steps themselves are meant to stay with the doctor.

Turkey's 2023 Hair Transplant Units Regulation made this explicit for the first time: opening the recipient channels, driving the extraction punch, and placing the grafts are reserved for a physician holding a Ministry-issued certificate. Technicians can prepare grafts and support the team, but not perform those three steps.

The regulation exists; enforcement is a separate question. Industry reporting has estimated that a majority of Istanbul clinics operate outside that framework. [VERIFY: source] That gap is exactly why it's worth confirming for yourself rather than assuming a country's law tells you what happens inside a specific clinic.

Ask directly, before you book: who performs the extraction and the incisions, by name and title, and will that same person be present for your entire procedure, not just the consultation. A clinic that answers specifically is different from one that says some version of "our expert team."

A technician-supported model isn't automatically worse — a lot of routine graft handling is repetitive, technical work an experienced technician does well. What matters is knowing which parts of your specific procedure are technician-handled and which aren't, before the day of surgery, not during it.

If a clinic won't name who does the surgical steps, that's an answer too.