Alex Hawkins in GQ: How Istanbul Became the Global Capital of the Hair Transplant. “I’m lying on a table in Istanbul and a doctor I’ve never met is about to cut 4,250 holes in my head. He might be a doctor. I think he’s a doctor? The procedure will take six hours. I have no friends or family within 5,000 miles. But in other ways I’m not alone. Thousands have joined me. We’re from the U.S. and the U.K. and the rest of Europe and we’ve flown to Turkey, which is now the hair transplant capital of the world. Surgeries that cost $20,000 in New York can be found for $2,000 on the shores of the Bosporus.” (Surgery on the head is one area where I tend not to bargain shop.)