Vladimir Panine, MD - Chicago's Top Hair Transplant Surgeon

Vladimir V. Panine, MD has two medical degrees, one from Moscow First Medical University (Cum laude) and the second from Boston University School of Medicine, also Cum laude. While at Boston University, he became interested in hair physiology while doing basic research at the BU/Tufts Department of Dermatology under the world-renowned Dr. Barbara A. Gilchrest, Chair of the Dermatology Department.

Dr. Panine pursued his interest in cosmetic surgery and hair restoration while in a surgical residency at Stanford University. However, he wanted to be board certified in Dermatology so that his board certification covered hair transplant surgery. Therefore, he completed an additional residency in Dermatology at Wayne State University, learning advanced hair transplant techniques from Dr. Ken Hashimoto, who wrote the textbooks for most dermatological procedures, including hair transplants.

As a resident, from 1993 - 1996, Dr. Panine gained hands on experience performing hair transplants under the supervision of a pioneer in hair transplant surgery techniques, Dr. Robert Fosnaugh at Dr. Fosnaugh's Clinic in Southfield, Michigan.

As an aside, it is notable that Dr. Fosnaugh was a close personal friend and colleague of Dr. Orentreich, who is the father of the dermatologic cosmetic surgery that we commonly call hair transplant surgery. In other words, Dr. Panine has a direct genealogy to the father of hair transplantation with only one degree of separation between them.

Dr. Panine utilizes his extensive cosmetic surgery and dermatological training to perform state of the art hair transplant procedures with an emphasis on natural and undetectable hairlines. In addition to the traditional FUT and FUE surgeries, Dr. Panine also performs Micro-FUE hair transplants and body hair transplants, where follicular unit extractions (FUE) are harvested from other parts of the body (chest, axillae, and abdomen) in patients with depleted donor area. He also restores eye-brows, facial hair, as well as addresses special situations such as the correction of previously failed hair transplants and the needs of burn victims, those with triangular alopecia, and patients after trauma and chemotherapy.

Dr. Panine has been performing hair restoration procedures since the early 1990’s. Over the last thirty-one years, he has performed over 6,000 procedures despite a unique, one-patient-per-day approach to hair transplant surgery that he designed to enhance the quality of patient results. He has a national reputation and is considered one of the foremost surgeons in hair restoration surgery. His patients have nothing but praise and compliments for his expertise, especially his ability to reconstruct and develop natural hairlines that are designed to complement each patient’s individual facial structure. His critics often cite that his hair transplant surgeries often take in excess of 8 hours. To that he rebuffs, "anything worth doing is worth doing well".

Dr. Panine founded Chicago Hair Transplant Clinic (CHTC) in 1997. CHTC is where Dr. Panine perfected his own ultra refined hair transplantation techniques and where he continues to revolutionize hair transplant surgery standards. Dr. Panine has been featured on national television, in newspapers, and magazines as you will be hard pressed to find anyone in the United States that has the pure pedigree of education and training in hair restoration, with 31 years of experience AND an actual* board certification from the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) that covers hair transplant surgery granted to him by the American Board of Dermatology on 10/14/1996.

*Hair transplant surgery is not recognized as a distinct specialty or subspecialty by the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS), the main umbrella organization for medical board certifications in the United States. Instead, surgeons performing hair transplants are often board-certified in related fields like dermatology or plastic surgery through ABMS member boards, with hair restoration as a subspecialized area of practice. The common ABHRS "board certification in hair transplant surgery" endorsed by the ISHRS is not a certification through the ABMS and instead serves as a way for anyone holding a medical license to demonstrate relevant training, post-training surgical experience (including case logs), having passed both a written and oral examination. Although admirable, the certification advertised by many hair transplant surgeons purchased from the ABHRS does not meet the high standards required of dermatology residents, who spend three years developing their surgical skills during a residency in dermatology and subsequent testing by the American Board of Dermatology that is required to become a board-certified dermatologist. Note a dermatology residency is one of the hardest residency programs to get into in the United States.

Dr. Panine is board certified by the American Board of Dermatology. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Dermatology. He is an active member of the International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery and has regularly attended the annual meeting since 1995.