Damkerng Pathomvanich, MD, is honored as this issue’s Pioneer for his work with donor area harvesting, Asian hair, and with bringing state-of-the-art hair restoration to Thailand. Additionally, he was on the original International Advisory Committee for the ISHRS. Dr. Pathomvanich was born in Thailand and received his medical degree from Siriraj hospital, Mahidol University in Bangkok, Thailand in 1970. After completing his internship at Siriraj hospital, he decided to do his internship in the United States at St. Mary of Nazareth Hospital in Chicago. He subsequently went on to complete five years of surgical residency training at Wyckoff Heights and King County Hospital in Brooklyn, New York. Dr. Pathomvanich is certified and recertified by the American Board of Surgery and is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons.
After spending a year as surgical house officer at Hillcrest Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio, he moved to Kailua-Kona in the Big Island of Hawaii. Initially, he started working for a group practice until he established his own private practice. After 12 years of surgical practice in the Kona coast of Hawaii, a leading anesthesiologist encouraged him to pursue training in Plastic Surgery. After extensive research in 1988, he instead decided to pursue a one-year fellowship in cosmetic surgery at the Center for Cosmetic Surgery in Little Rock, Arkansas. During that time he heard about Stough Medical Associates in Hot Springs, Arkansas. After assisting in cosmetic surgery earlier in the week, Dr. Pathomvanich would drive from Little Rock to Hot Springs every Friday to work with Dr. Stough. He usually saw about two to six cases daily of grafting and scalp reductions that were performed by Drs. Dow Stough, Bluford Stough, and Bruce Nelson. Dr. Pathomvanich even had hair transplantation performed on him by these surgeons during that year. Grafting was in transition at that time and his transplant consisted of round full-grafts, half-grafts, quarter-grafts, and micrografts.
Damkerng Pathomvanich, MD Bangkok, Thailand
Once he completed his fellowship, Dr. Pathomvanich visited many clinics for observation in both hair transplantation and cosmetic surgery before deciding to move back to Thailand. With the help of Dr. Dow Stough, who spent time with him for two weeks in Bangkok, he was able to set up Thailand’s first hair transplant clinic dedicated to hair restoration. He named it “Stough Clinic” with the permission of Dr. Dow Stough. Prior to returning to Thailand, Dr. Pathomvanich visited Bangkok frequently and was told by his colleagues that the general attitude toward hair restoration was poor as there was a lack of qualified surgeons and most performed jobs that were either unfinished, used big grafts, or had poor to no growth, scars, and infection. This unfair reputation pushed him more toward hair transplantation than other cosmetic surgical procedures. At first, his routine was to do scalp reductions for the vertex and hair grafts for the front. He found flaps to be disliked by the patients as being unnatural. Presently, Dr. Pathomvanich uses microscopes and all FU grafting, although he still employs mini-/micrografts in selected cases. Dr. Pathomvanich is in private practice and dedicates most of his work to the field of hair restoration, but still performs some general cosmetic surgical procedures.
Dr. Pathomvanich considered transection during donor harvesting as one of the major weaknesses in single- and multibladed strip harvesting. He tried all the existing techniques, but found minimal improvement. Realizing all these techniques were blind, he asked himself “Why not try an open technique?” The usage of skin hooks came to his mind when he saw his gardener peel coconut shells. He used two skin hooks inserted into the small stab wound and pulled in the opposite directions while cutting perpendicular to the line of tension between the hair follicles. Through persistence he was able to master the technique. The key is pulling hard during cutting and keeping the area clear of blood. Using this technique, a strip 15cm in length can be harvested in 15–20 minutes with minimal transection. The big advantage of this technique is that it is an open method that allows you to visualize the follicles before cutting, without needing to constantly guess at the correct angle. Another advantage is that you can predict that the transection will be minimal even in the presence of scar tissue.
Over the past 12 years, his clinic has become the leading center for hair restoration in Thailand, with physicians from many countries visiting to observe his clinic. Dr. Pathomvanich has published many articles regarding hair restoration in the Asian-Thai medical journals, the Thai textbook of organ transplantation, Dermatologic Surgery, Aesthetic Cosmetic Surgery, Hair Transplant Forum International, and the like. Additionally, Dr. Pathomvanich frequently lectures in Thailand, Asia, Europe, and the United States regarding hair restoration in Asians and his technique of donor harvesting.
He married his classmate “Pachnee” who is also a physician (Internist) and practices in Bangkok. He has two sons: Danny, who is 27 years old and is currently working at a consulting firm in Bangkok, and Paul who is 22 years old and studying in Washington D.C.
Dr. Pathomvanich feels time is passing by so quickly that he doesn’t realize he is already 58 years old. Swimming and jogging are his main hobbies.
- Copyright © 2002 by The International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery