Rethinking hair transplant: A call for greater awareness in cosmetic wellness

In March this year, Vineet Dubey, a 37-year-old engineer from Kanpur, died just two days after undergoing a hair transplant.

- SALONI ANAND

In March this year, Vineet Dubey, a 37-year-old engineer from Kanpur, died just two days after undergoing a hair transplant. The procedure was conducted by a dentist posing as a hair transplant surgeon. No proper medical screening. No safeguards. Just another clinic promising transformation, and delivering tragedy. Only a few months earlier, another engineer, Mayank Katiyar, met the same fate at the same clinic.

Two preventable deaths. One uncomfortable, painful truth. These are not isolated incidents. They're symptoms of a broken system. And it's high time that things changed.

As someone who has worked in the wellness space for years, I've seen firsthand the deep emotional impact of hair loss. It can be a profoundly personal struggle, one that often leads people to seek quick solutions in moments of vulnerability. In recent years, the rise in popularity of cosmetic procedures like hair transplants has outpaced the growth of regulation, patient education and the ethical conversations that should accompany them.

Today, it's possible for a cosmetic clinic to open with minimal oversight, promote services aggressively and operate without the presence of qualified medical professionals. Influencer marketing and celebrity endorsements have helped frame these procedures as routine and low-risk, something closer to a spa treatment than a surgical intervention. But this perception doesn't reflect the full picture.