Which of the six checks fall inside your stay, which fall after you fly home, what remote follow-up can and cannot do, and what to send at each point.
Follow-up after surgery at Edition runs to six appointments: day 1, day 5, two weeks, one month, three months, and six months. For a patient living in Seoul, that is a schedule. For a patient living in Melbourne or Manchester, it is a question — because most of those dates fall after the flight home.
The question is worth answering properly rather than reassuringly. Some of the schedule survives distance well. Some of it does not, and the honest account of which is which is more useful than an assurance that everything can be handled remotely.
This page sets out which visits fall inside a typical stay and which fall after it, what remote follow-up actually consists of, what to send and when, and what warrants contacting the clinic outside the schedule. What each visit examines clinically is covered in its own page, as is the question of having sutures removed after you fly home.
The first two checks — day 1 and day 5 — fall inside a normal stay and are attended in person. The later ones, at one month, three months and six months, generally fall after you have flown home, and for overseas patients these are handled remotely: photographs and a description sent to the clinic, reviewed against what is expected at that stage, with a reply. Remote follow-up is a real part of the schedule rather than a courtesy, but it is not equivalent to an examination. It can identify what needs attention; it cannot examine tissue. What it depends on entirely is the quality and consistency of what you send.
On this page
- Which visits fall where
- What remote follow-up actually is
- What it can do, and what it cannot
- The photographs, and why consistency matters more than quality
- What to write alongside them
- Keeping your own record
- The one-month, three-month and six-month checks from abroad
- What warrants contacting the clinic outside the schedule
- Being seen by a doctor where you live
- What the schedule assumes of you
- Questions patients ask
Which visits fall where
Map the six against a normal overseas stay and the picture becomes concrete.
| Check | Where it usually falls | How it is handled |
|---|---|---|
| Day 1 | Inside the stay | In person |
| Day 5 | Inside the stay | In person |
| Two weeks | Varies with the length of the trip | Arranged individually |
| One month | After the flight home | Remotely |
| Three months | After the flight home | Remotely |
| Six months | After the flight home | Remotely |
The first two are the ones the schedule most depends on being attended in person, and they are also the two that fall comfortably inside a normal stay. That is not a coincidence. The early period is where findings change daily and where an examination reads things that no photograph carries.
The two-week point sits on the boundary. Where it falls for you depends on the length of your trip and on what your operation involved, and it is arranged individually rather than assumed in either direction. Where suture removal is involved, that is a subject in its own right and is dealt with separately.
What each check is looking for — why day 5 rather than day 4, why the intervals lengthen, why the schedule closes at six months — belongs to the page on the follow-up schedule itself. This page is about what changes when you are not in the country.
What remote follow-up actually is
The phrase covers a wide range of things at different clinics, so it is worth being specific about what it means here.
The clinic operates a real-time progress consultation by messaging, and for an overseas patient this is the channel through which the later checks run. Which messaging route applies to you is arranged with the clinic rather than found by you — the clinic's channels are organised by region, and the one appropriate to you is given when you enquire.
A remote check consists of three things: photographs taken by you at the relevant point, a written description of what you are experiencing, and a reply reviewing both against what is expected at that stage of healing.
What makes it work is not the technology. It is that the person reading your photographs at three months is the person who operated, has your imaging and your operative record, and has seen your face at day 1 and day 5 in person. Continuity is what allows a photograph to be read as a change rather than as an isolated image.
What it can do, and what it cannot
Both halves of this deserve stating, because a page that only states the first is not describing the arrangement honestly.
What remote follow-up does well. It tracks the trajectory of recovery over time, which is most of what the later checks are for. It answers the questions that dominate months two through six — whether what you are seeing is expected at this point, whether asymmetry you have noticed is swelling or structure, whether something has changed in a direction that matters. It catches the thing that needs attention early enough to act on. And it settles the anxiety that a patient at a distance would otherwise carry for months, which is not a small clinical benefit.
What it cannot do. It cannot examine tissue. Palpation reads firmness, mobility and tenderness, and none of those appear in an image. It cannot assess breathing through the nose from the outside. It cannot resolve a finding that depends on how something feels rather than how it looks. And it cannot perform a procedure — anything requiring hands is a return visit or a local referral.
The practical consequence: remote follow-up is a genuine part of the schedule for the later checks, and it is not a substitute for the early in-person ones. A patient who leaves before day 5 has removed something the remote arrangement was never designed to replace.
The photographs, and why consistency matters more than quality
Almost everything that makes remote follow-up useful or useless sits here.
Photographs sent over months are read as a sequence. A change between two images is only informative if nothing else changed — and lighting, angle, distance and expression change appearance more than the difference being assessed. A set taken in bathroom light at arm's length, then in daylight at a normal distance, then under a window, does not show a trajectory. It shows three lighting conditions.
So the aim is not a good photograph. It is the same photograph, repeatedly.
- The same views each time. Front, both sides in profile, and both three-quarter views. For a nose, add one taken from below looking up, and one smiling.
- The same light. Even, indirect daylight, facing a window rather than standing under a ceiling light. Overhead light casts shadows that read as contour.
- The same distance. Held at a normal distance rather than at arm's length. Close range exaggerates projection substantially, which is exactly the thing being assessed.
- The same height. Camera at eye level. A camera held slightly high or low changes proportion in the image.
- Nothing on the face. No make-up on the area in question, hair back, neutral expression except for the deliberate smiling shot.
The most reliable way to achieve this is to choose one spot in your home, take the first set there, and return to it every time. Note where you stood. Consistency achieved by habit beats consistency attempted from memory.
What to write alongside them
Photographs without a description are half a report. What you write should answer four things.
How many days or weeks since surgery. Exactly. This determines what the images are being compared against.
What you are noticing. Specifically, and located — which part, which side, in which view or at which time of day. “Firmer on the left side of the bridge, most noticeable in the morning” is a finding. “It looks odd” is a feeling about a finding.
What has changed since last time. Direction is often more informative than degree. Something improving slowly and something that appeared last week are different reports even if they look identical in an image.
Anything relevant that happened. A knock to the face, an illness, a new medication, a dental procedure, a long flight. Patients omit these because they seem unconnected, and they are frequently the explanation.
Keeping your own record
A small amount of discipline here pays for itself repeatedly over six months.
Keep the photographs in one folder, named by the number of days since surgery rather than by date — you will be thinking in days, not in calendar dates, for the first two months. Keep the replies you receive with them. And keep a short note of anything you asked and what you were told, because at four months you will not remember whether the firmness you are noticing now is the firmness that was discussed at one month.
This record is also what a local doctor will want if you ever need to be seen where you live, and assembling it in an anxious moment is harder than maintaining it.
The one-month, three-month and six-month checks from abroad
These three are the substance of remote follow-up, and each has a different character from a distance.
One month. The point at which many overseas patients have been home for two or three weeks and are forming their first settled impression of the result. This is worth sending on time rather than when something concerns you, because a full set at one month is the reference every later set is compared against.
Three months. The interval where patients most often stop sending, because nothing dramatic is happening and the trip feels distant. It is worth sending anyway. Slow changes are exactly the ones a sequence detects and an individual glance does not.
Six months. The point at which the result is assessed, and the reason the schedule extends this far. A patient who has sent consistent sets at one and three months arrives here with a trajectory behind them; one who has sent nothing arrives with a single image and no context for it.
Send each within a few days of the mark rather than a month late. A set that arrives at five weeks and is labelled one month introduces an error into the comparison it is meant to serve.
What warrants contacting the clinic outside the schedule
The schedule sets when routine checks happen. It does not set when you may make contact, and some findings should not wait for the next interval.
Contact the clinic promptly, outside the schedule, if you develop a fever; if pain increases rather than decreases, or begins after having settled; if you see spreading redness, heat, or swelling that is worsening rather than improving; if there is discharge from a wound or a wound opens; if bleeding does not stop; if breathing through the nose becomes markedly worse rather than gradually better; or if something changes suddenly, particularly after an impact.
The general principle covers what a list cannot: recovery moves in the direction of improvement, unevenly but consistently. A clear reversal of direction is worth reporting when you notice it rather than at the next scheduled point.
Do not spend the interval deciding whether something is serious enough to mention. That determination requires information you are not in a position to weigh, and reporting something that turns out to be ordinary costs nothing.
Being seen by a doctor where you live
Distance means that some situations need hands sooner than a flight allows, and it is worth having thought about this before it arises.
Know how you would access urgent care where you live, out of hours as well as during the day. Keep your operative information accessible — what was done, when, and what materials were used — because a local doctor seeing you for the first time will ask, and the answer matters.
If you are seen locally, tell the clinic in Seoul what happened and what you were given. A course of antibiotics prescribed elsewhere is part of your record, and the follow-up that continues afterwards should be reading your recovery with that information in it.
What the schedule assumes of you
Worth stating, because the arrangement depends on it.
It assumes you attend the in-person checks that fall inside your stay, rather than shortening the trip once you feel well. It assumes you send the later sets on time, including the ones where nothing appears to be happening. It assumes you describe what you are experiencing accurately rather than optimistically — patients under-report discomfort routinely, and an under-reported finding is one nobody can act on. And it assumes you make contact when something changes direction, rather than waiting for the next interval.
Follow-up at a distance works when both sides do their part. The clinic's part is continuity: the same surgeon, the same record, the same eye across six months. Yours is the sequence of photographs and the accuracy of the description.
Questions patients ask
Do I have to return to Korea for the later appointments?
For overseas patients the one-month, three-month and six-month checks are generally handled remotely. Whether an in-person visit is advisable at any point depends on findings rather than on the calendar.
How do I send photographs?
Through the channel arranged with the clinic. The clinic operates a real-time progress consultation by messaging, and the route appropriate to your region is given to you rather than found by you.
Is remote follow-up the same as being examined?
No, and it is not offered as such. It reads trajectory over time and identifies what needs attention. It cannot palpate tissue, assess breathing, or perform a procedure.
What if I miss one of the intervals?
Send the set late rather than skipping it, and say how many days after surgery it was actually taken. A labelled late set is usable; an unsent one is not.
Can I shorten my stay and do the early checks remotely instead?
The early in-person checks are the ones remote follow-up was never designed to replace. Leaving before them removes the part of the schedule that most depends on examination.
Nothing is wrong. Do I still send photographs at three months?
Yes. The three-month set is the one most often skipped and one of the more useful, because slow change is detected in a sequence rather than in a glance.
Should I see a doctor at home during recovery?
Know how you would access urgent care where you live, and use it if something needs hands. Tell the clinic in Seoul what happened and what you were given, so that it forms part of the record the remaining follow-up reads against.
About the medical reviewer
Dae-hee Han, MD — Board-Certified Plastic Surgeon (specialist certificate No. 2045, issued 3 March 2014; medical licence 00394, issued 26 February 2009). Master’s degree, Ajou University School of Medicine. Training at the Craniofacial Center, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Taiwan (2013), and the IFAAS Mini Fellowship, University of Florida, USA (2016). Three rhinoplasty papers published in SCIE-indexed international journals. More than 4,500 nose surgeries — Dr. Han’s career total from 2017 to 2025, counted from medical records. He carries out consultation, surgery and follow-up personally; fee guidance is given by the clinic’s consultation manager.
Last reviewed: 2026-08-15
Clinic information
Edition Plastic Surgery Clinic & Dermatology
6F, OPUS 407, 407 Gangnam-daero, Seocho-gu, Seoul 06614, Republic of Korea
One minute on foot from Gangnam Station Exit 10
Tel +82-2-591-0100 · editionprs@gmail.com
Consultation hours: Monday to Friday 10:00–19:00 · Saturday 10:00–17:00 · closed Sundays and public holidays
Disclaimer
Individual results may vary. Bleeding, infection, swelling, asymmetry, and scarring can occur. Please decide after a full consultation with a board-certified specialist.
This page is general medical information. It is not a diagnosis, and it does not promise a particular outcome. Surgical fees are given after an in-person consultation.