After Robert Bernstein ’04 (EMBA) finished his residency in dermatology, he wanted to know how the hair transplants he’d performed had turned out — so he reconnected with some of his former patients.
Words of Wisdom
“If there’s something that you find really exciting and interesting, you have to go for it.”
The results shocked him. “In those days we were doing hair plugs, and I was pretty aghast at the way they looked,” says Bernstein. “I swore I would never do hair transplants in practice.” He didn’t for 13 years, until he saw the natural-looking results of a transplant performed by Dr. William Rassman, who was pioneering new techniques. “There was a real opportunity for breakthroughs,” says Bernstein, who teamed up with Rassman and in 1995 launched the first practice that offered follicular unit transplantation, where naturally occurring groups of follicles from the back of a donor’s head are harvested and placed to grow in sparser areas — then just a new idea, but today the gold standard in hair restoration.
Favorite Class
Financial Accounting taught by Professor Amir Ziv. “I learned so much — when I started the class, I didn’t even know how to use Excel.”
In 2004, Bernstein set up his own boutique practice in Manhattan, the Bernstein Medical Center for Hair Restoration. It is the third practice in the world to offer robotic hair transplants. The recipient of the “Platinum Follicle Award” — an industry honor — and frequent hair-loss expert on shows like Good Morning America, Bernstein says he doesn’t pressure people to have hair transplants. “Being bald myself, I think I’m a good model that you can be bald and still have a happy, successful life.”