Travelling to Seoul (clinic-wide)
Somebody living in Seoul can come for an assessment, hear that the right answer is to wait three months, and lose nothing but an afternoon. Somebody arriving from another country has already spent the money and the leave before the first word is said. Everything here exists to move as much of the decision as possible to before the flight, where it can still be changed without cost.
01The first step is a written review, not a booking
For an overseas patient the process begins with a written review of photographs and of any imaging already held, carried out before travel. It is not a diagnosis. It is an opinion on three questions: what the material is likely to be, whether the problem described is one this practice treats, and whether a single visit is a realistic plan.
Those three answers determine everything else. A person told before booking that the material appears to sit in several planes, and that the work will probably be staged, plans a different trip. A person told that the images suggest active inflammation, and that the first step is to settle it rather than to operate, saves a journey entirely.
What to send, and in what form
The quality of a remote review is limited entirely by what is sent. A photograph taken with a beauty filter, a screen photograph of an ultrasound machine, or a photograph of a printed CT film will not carry the information that has to be read out of it.
- Photographs
- Front, both three-quarter views and both profiles, in even indirect daylight. One set at rest, one animating the area. No filters, no beauty mode, no flash close to the face: a filter removes exactly the surface irregularity that has to be assessed.
- Older photographs
- Any ordinary personal photograph taken before the first injection. This is the only reliable record of the original face, and without it an assessment is guessing at what was always there.
- Ultrasound
- The report and the stored images as files, not photographs of a screen. A screen photograph loses the depth scale and the machine settings, which are what make the images readable.
- CT
- The original DICOM data, on disc or by transfer. Measurement is done from the data; a photograph of a film cannot be re-sliced.
- Written history
- Dates, sites, what was injected where this is known, how many sessions of hyaluronidase or of steroid were given, and what each one did and for how long.
- Any document naming a product
- A receipt, consent form, prescription record, clinic note, or a photograph of packaging. This is the one document that identifies a material with certainty. Imaging does not.
- The complaint now
- When each symptom began, what makes it worse, and any episode of redness, fever, discharge or sudden swelling, with dates.
What the review can and cannot settle
A remote review is provisional and is described as provisional. It is made from images taken elsewhere, on another machine, and it cannot substitute for examining the face and scanning it here. Palpation alone changes plans: a deposit that looks discrete on an image can be found fixed to the tissue around it, and a face that photographs symmetrically can be markedly asymmetrical on the table.
The plan that comes out of a review is a working plan. It is confirmed, adjusted or set aside after examination and ultrasound in Seoul. A patient who has travelled should expect adjustment as the ordinary course of events, and should be suspicious of any remote assessment that does not say so.
Nothing on this page is a commitment to operate. Whether an operation is offered, and what it consists of, is decided after examination. A patient may travel, be examined, and be advised to wait, to treat inflammation first, or not to operate at all. That outcome is uncommon where a review has been done properly beforehand, but it is possible, and it is better stated here than discovered in a consulting room.02How long to stay
The figures below are built from the clinic’s stated recovery pattern rather than from a package. For a removal, swelling increases over the first two to three days and is worst on the second, sutures come out at five to seven days, and most people return to ordinary activity from about a week. For a facelift, sutures come out within about ten days and most people are in ordinary company between seven and ten days. A stay has to contain the operation, the suture removal and at least one review after it.
| Plan | Indicative days in Seoul | What actually sets the length |
|---|---|---|
| Assessment only, no surgery on this trip | 2 to 3 | Examination and ultrasound on the day; CT where bone is part of the question; a further appointment to go through the findings. |
| Removal, one region, limited dissection | 7 to 10 | Sutures at five to seven days, then one review before travelling. |
| Removal across several regions, or under general anaesthesia | 10 to 14 | Wider dissection, more bruising, and a second review before flying. |
| Under-eye removal | 10 to 14 | Bruising is conspicuous here and lasts longer; where a skin incision has been used, sutures come out at five to seven days. |
| Removal with a lifting procedure at the same sitting | 14 to 18 | Sutures within about ten days, ordinary company between seven and ten days, and a wider area of swelling than removal alone. |
| Facelift alone | 14 to 16 | As above. The visible part settles in this period; firmness continues for months afterwards. |
| Staged removal, first stage | 7 to 10 for this stage | The second stage is a separate journey, usually some months later, decided on what remains once the tissue has settled. |
Two warnings about that table. It describes the visible part of recovery and nothing else. Tissue that has had foreign material taken out of it heals by scarring, and scar is firm before it is soft; firmness, small irregularities and areas that feel tethered are ordinary in the early months. The clinic asks for up to six months before a result is judged, and longer under the eye. Nobody flies home with a finished face.
And the shortest figure in a range assumes an uncomplicated course. Where bruising is marked it can take two weeks or more to clear, so anyone who has to be presentable on a particular date should plan against the longer figure.
03Flying home
The wound itself is rarely what makes early flying unwise. Two other things do. Swelling behaves badly in a cabin and in the immobility of a long flight, particularly around the eyelids. More importantly, flying out before the sutures are out and before a review has happened removes the window in which a haematoma, a wound problem or an early infection is caught and dealt with easily.
The rule used for planning is therefore not a number of days but a sequence: sutures out, at least one review completed, and the surgeon content with the wound. For most removals that falls somewhere around a week; for a lift it is closer to two. Where the operation has been done under general anaesthesia, a long flight and prolonged immobility are matters for individual advice at the time rather than a rule on a page, and should be raised before the return ticket is fixed.
04After returning home
Follow-up continues by correspondence. The clinic’s stated approach is a minimum of six months of observation before judging the result of a removal, which for an overseas patient means reviews conducted on photographs rather than in person.
Photographs taken in the same conditions each time are what make this work: the same light, the same distance, the same angles, no filters. A set at two weeks, six weeks, three months and six months gives a sequence that can be compared. Photographs taken in different light at different distances cannot be, and a real change is easily hidden by a change of lamp.
One division of labour should be agreed before leaving. Anything acute belongs to a doctor who can see the patient that day: spreading redness, fever, discharge from a wound, a sudden increase in swelling on one side, or any change in vision after work near the eye is a reason to attend a local emergency service immediately and to send word to Seoul afterwards, not the other way round. Anything concerning the interpretation of the result, the timing of a second stage, or whether firmness is settling as expected belongs to the clinic.
Where a second stage is expected, its timing is known in advance and can be planned around. The clinic’s stated intervals are about three months after removal for non-surgical tightening and about six months for autologous fat grafting, and a decision on further removal is taken at about six months on what remains and what symptoms it causes. Those intervals exist because the tissue has not finished changing before them, and they are not shortened to suit a travel schedule.
05Language and how contact is made
Only what is verified is stated here. UVOM Plastic Surgery’s published contact channels are the main line 02-545-3700, which from outside Korea is +82 2 545 3700; the email address uvom@uvom.com; and the clinic’s KakaoTalk channel at pf.kakao.com/_IzMzE. No list of languages spoken at the clinic is published, and none is claimed on this page. Arrangements for interpreting are settled in advance through those channels, and should be established before travelling rather than assumed.
Where a language boundary exists, the written channels are worth using in preference to the telephone, for a reason that has nothing to do with fluency. Email and messages leave a record. A plan that has been written down can be re-read, translated carefully and shown to a doctor at home. A plan that exists only as something said through an interpreter in the twenty minutes after examination usually cannot.
It is reasonable to ask for the essential points in writing before the operation: which regions are being treated, what is expected to be left in place, whether the work is one stage or two, and what the recovery timetable is. A clinic that will not put those in writing is telling you something.
06What should not be planned remotely
Some situations can be assessed from images well enough to plan a trip around. Others cannot, and saying so in advance is more useful than discovering it after landing.
- Active infection, or a nodule that is currently red, hot, painful or discharging. The first step is to settle it, which takes an unpredictable number of weeks, and no operating date can sensibly be fixed before that.
- No imaging of any kind and no photographs predating the first treatment. A review can still be given, but it will be weak, and the first visit is realistically an assessment rather than an operation.
- Material of unknown type across several planes, where staged surgery is the probable answer. The likelihood can be stated in advance; the number of stages and the interval between them cannot.
- Any symptom involving the eye itself: change in vision, double vision, a lid that will not close, or pain behind the eye. These require examination first, and by an ophthalmologist as well.
- A request for complete removal made as a condition of travelling. Complete removal is not something anyone can promise about a face with adhesions, and a plan built on that promise fails where the material has no border.
- A stay too short for the operation being requested. Three days and a facelift do not go together, and the honest answer is to change one of the two.
None of those is a refusal. Each is a reason to change the shape of the trip: to come for assessment first and operate later, to settle inflammation before booking, or to plan two visits from the outset.
- What to bring to Seoul
- Documents
- Any record naming an injected product: receipts, consent forms, prescription records, clinic notes, photographs of packaging.
- Imaging
- Ultrasound report and images; CT as original DICOM data on disc, not photographs of film.
- Photographs
- The set sent for review, and any personal photographs predating the first treatment.
- Written history
- Dates and sites of every injection and procedure, every session of hyaluronidase or steroid with its effect, and dates of any previous surgery.
- Medical history
- Current medication including anticoagulants, aspirin and supplements; allergies; bleeding tendency; any chronic condition.
- Practical
- Dark glasses, a scarf or high collar, a shirt that buttons rather than goes over the head, and accommodation booked for the longer end of the indicative range.
- Contact
- Main line 02-545-3700, or +82 2 545 3700 from outside Korea; uvom@uvom.com; KakaoTalk channel pf.kakao.com/_IzMzE.