The fixed post-operative dates and what each one is, why they rather than preference shape the itinerary, and how a return flight is chosen backwards from them.
Most people plan a medical trip forwards: pick dates that suit, fit the surgery in, arrange the rest around it. For nose surgery that method produces conflicts, because several things after the operation happen on particular days and not on the days you would prefer.
The useful method is the reverse. Establish the fixed points, work out where they fall relative to the surgery date, and choose the flights from there.
This page sets out what the fixed dates are, what each one involves, which parts of the schedule are genuinely immovable and which have some flexibility, and how a return flight is chosen backwards from them. Total stay length is covered in its own page, as is the arrangement in which sutures are removed after you fly home.
Three fixed points sit inside the first fortnight after rhinoplasty. Internal nasal packing is removed at day 2. Follow-up examinations fall at day 1 and day 5. Sutures are removed at day 14 for cases using ear or autologous rib cartilage — though for patients living abroad, removal at around day 5 to 7 is frequently arranged instead, where the surgical plan allows. Return to social activity is guided at around day 7. The clinic is closed on Sundays and public holidays, which means a surgery date determines which of your post-operative days are actually usable. Flights are chosen after these are mapped, not before.
On this page
- The fixed points, listed
- Day 1 and day 2: the appointments nobody skips
- Day 5: the check that shapes what follows
- Day 7: a marker, not a date
- Day 14: the one that decides the trip
- Which days are usable, and which are not
- Choosing the return flight backwards
- What is flexible and what is not
- The dates that are not in the first fortnight
- What a worked schedule looks like
- What happens to the schedule if the surgery date moves
- Keep two calendars, because the clinic uses one and your airline uses the other
- Questions patients ask
The fixed points, listed
Counting from the day of surgery as day 0:
| Point | What happens | Fixed? |
|---|---|---|
| Day 1 | First follow-up examination | Yes |
| Day 2 | Internal nasal packing removed | Yes |
| Day 5 | Second follow-up examination | Yes |
| Around day 5–7 | Suture removal, where arranged early for overseas patients | Depends on the plan |
| Around day 7 | Return to social activity | Guidance, not an appointment |
| Day 14 | Suture removal (ear or autologous rib cartilage cases) | Yes, unless arranged otherwise |
Two of these are procedures, two are examinations, and one is guidance. The distinction matters, because they are not equally negotiable.
Day 1 and day 2: the appointments nobody skips
The first two days after surgery involve attending the clinic on both.
Day 1 is the first follow-up. The surgical sites and dressings are checked, bruising and swelling assessed, and how you have managed the first night established. Nothing is removed.
Day 2 is when internal nasal packing comes out. Until it does, breathing through the nose is not possible, and most patients find the interval between surgery and this point the least comfortable stretch of the entire recovery.
Neither of these is deferrable. Together they mean that the two days after surgery are committed, and that you need accommodation within convenient reach of the clinic rather than at the other end of the city.
Day 5: the check that shapes what follows
By day 5, packing has been out for three days and the earliest phase has passed. This appointment reads the trajectory of healing rather than its state.
What is assessed is how swelling and bruising are progressing, whether nasal breathing has begun to open up, the condition of the incision sites, and whether anything is deviating from the expected course.
For an international patient it carries a second function. This is where the plan for the remainder of the recovery is settled, including — where relevant — suture removal. It also falls immediately before day 7, so the guidance about returning to social activity comes with a current examination behind it.
Day 7: a marker, not a date
Return to social activity is guided at around day 7. It is not an appointment and nothing happens at the clinic.
What it describes is the point at which most patients, doing most kinds of things, are comfortable being seen and functioning normally. Bruising has usually faded substantially; swelling, particularly at the tip, has not.
For trip planning it is useful in a narrow way — it indicates when moving through an airport and travelling is likely to be comfortable. It does not indicate that you can leave, which depends on the suture arrangement rather than on how you look.
Day 14: the one that decides the trip
Sutures are removed at day 14 for cases using ear cartilage or autologous rib cartilage. This is the protocol timing.
Day 14 is well outside a stay of 7 to 10 days, which is what makes it the item that determines the shape of the trip. Three routes exist.
Stay for it. A stay of around two weeks, which accommodates every fixed point in the country.
Have it done earlier. For overseas patients, removal at around day 5 to 7 is frequently arranged alongside the early swelling and condition check, where the surgical plan permits. This is the route that makes a stay of 7 to 10 days work.
Have it done after you return. Arranged in advance, agreed before the surgery rather than after, and not suitable in every case. The full account is in the page on removing sutures after you fly home.
Which route applies to you follows from the surgical plan — specifically, which cartilage is used. That is decided from what the examination and imaging find, which is why the itinerary cannot be finalised before the consultation.
Which days are usable, and which are not
This is the practical detail that most often disrupts an otherwise sensible plan.
The clinic is open Monday to Friday 10:00 to 19:00 and Saturday 10:00 to 17:00, and closed on Sundays and public holidays.
Run that against the fixed points. A surgery date on a Friday puts day 1 on Saturday and day 2 on Sunday — and Sunday is closed. A surgery date on a Saturday puts day 1 on Sunday. Korean public holidays produce the same effect on other days of the week, and there are several that fall in clusters.
None of this is unmanageable. It is scheduled around rather than discovered, and it is one of the reasons a surgery date is confirmed by the clinic rather than chosen by the patient. What it means for you is that a date you have picked for its convenience may not be the date that works, and that checking the calendar for public holidays before you propose dates saves a round of rescheduling.
Choosing the return flight backwards
The method is straightforward once the fixed points are known.
Start from the last fixed point that has to happen in the country. For most patients this is suture removal, either at day 14 or at whatever earlier point has been agreed.
Add a buffer. Two or three days after the last appointment rather than a flight the same evening. Appointments can move, healing can call for an extra check, and a flight booked for the same day as a procedure leaves no room for either.
Work backwards to the arrival date. Allow time before the surgery for the consultation and imaging, which happen at the clinic and cannot be substituted by scans brought from elsewhere. Arriving several days before is better than arriving the day before, and considerably better than arriving on the morning of.
Book the flights last. Which sounds obvious and is routinely done the other way round. A ticket bought before the surgery date is confirmed becomes a constraint on a plan that should be driven by findings. What to fix before booking is set out in the page on booking flights around a surgery date.
What is flexible and what is not
Worth separating clearly.
Not flexible. Packing removal at day 2. The examinations at day 1 and day 5. The fact that sutures have to be removed by someone competent to remove them.
Some flexibility. Exactly when sutures come out, within what the surgical plan allows. Where they are removed, in the specific circumstances in which removal abroad is arranged in advance. The precise timing of appointments within a day.
Flexible. When you arrive, provided it is early enough for the consultation. What you do with the days between appointments. When you fly home, once the last required point has passed.
One thing that should not be treated as flexible is the surgical plan itself. Where a travel constraint pulls against a clinical decision — a material chosen because it suits your nose, carrying a suture timing that does not suit your flight — the clinical decision takes precedence.
The dates that are not in the first fortnight
One thing worth holding in view while mapping the first two weeks is that they are not the whole schedule. Follow-up after rhinoplasty runs to six appointments: day 1, day 5, two weeks, one month, three months and six months.
Three of those fall outside any plausible trip. This is not a gap in the plan — it is the normal position for an international patient, and it is handled rather than ignored. What matters at the planning stage is knowing which appointments you are building the trip around and which you are not, so that the trip is not stretched in an attempt to cover appointments it was never going to reach.
Two practical consequences follow.
The two-week appointment is the boundary case. Where sutures come out at day 14, that appointment happens in Korea. Where removal has been brought forward or arranged elsewhere, it may not, and what would have been checked there is covered at the day 5 visit and afterwards by other means.
The later appointments are arranged rather than attended. One month, three months and six months are checks on how the result is settling. How they are handled from overseas — what is sent, when, and what warrants contacting the clinic outside the schedule — is set out in the page on follow-up from abroad, and it is worth agreeing before you leave rather than after.
What a worked schedule looks like
An illustration, using a plan in which suture removal has been brought forward.
Arrive several days before surgery. Attend for consultation and 3D CT imaging; the plan is made and the surgery date confirmed. Surgery follows. Day 1: first follow-up. Day 2: packing removed. Days 3 and 4: rest, with nothing scheduled. Day 5: second follow-up, with suture removal where the plan allows it. Day 6 and onward: a buffer of two or three days before flying, falling around the day 7 marker.
That produces a stay in the region of 7 to 10 days, which is where the standard guidance comes from. A plan in which sutures stay in until day 14 produces a stay of around two weeks instead, and the difference is the surgical plan rather than a choice made at booking.
What happens to the schedule if the surgery date moves
Every fixed point on this page is expressed relative to the day of the operation. That is what makes them stable, and it is also what makes them move together.
Surgery dates do occasionally shift — by a day, sometimes by a little more. When one does, nothing about the sequence changes and everything about the calendar does. Packing removal moves with it. Day 5 moves with it. The suture date moves with it. A trip built with a return flight sitting tight against the last fixed point has no room to absorb that, and the shift then lands on the one component of the trip that costs money to change.
The response is to build the slack in deliberately rather than to hope it is not needed. Leaving a margin of a day or two after the last appointment you have to attend costs a night of accommodation. Removing that margin saves the night and transfers the risk to the flight, which is the more expensive place for it to sit.
It is also worth knowing that the sequence itself does not compress to accommodate a late start. The dates are set by healing, so a delayed operation delays the end of the trip; it does not shorten what happens in between.
Keep two calendars, because the clinic uses one and your airline uses the other
A small piece of administration prevents a surprising share of scheduling errors.
Everything you are told at the clinic will be expressed in day-numbers — day 2, day 5, day 14 — counted from the operation. Everything you book will be expressed in dates. The translation between the two is trivial to do once and easy to get wrong under the conditions in which people usually do it, which is at an airport or late at night in a hotel room.
So write both down together, in one place, before you travel: the calendar date beside each day-number, with the day of the week beside that. The day of the week matters because the clinic is closed on Sundays and public holidays, and a fixed point landing on one has to be planned around rather than discovered.
Then book against that list rather than against a general sense of how long the trip will be.
Questions patients ask
Can packing removal be moved?
Day 2 is the protocol timing and it is not adjusted to suit an itinerary. It is also the point most patients are counting down to, since nasal breathing is not possible until it happens.
Why do some people stay 7 days and others 14?
Suture timing. Day 14 is the protocol figure for cases using ear or autologous rib cartilage; for overseas patients, removal at around day 5 to 7 is frequently arranged where the surgical plan permits. Which applies follows from the plan rather than from preference.
Can I book flights before my consultation?
It is better not to. The suture timing — the item that determines the length of the trip — follows from the surgical plan, and the plan follows from the examination and imaging.
What if a public holiday falls in the middle of my stay?
The clinic is closed on Sundays and public holidays, so a holiday removes a day you would otherwise have available. This is scheduled around when the surgery date is set, and it is worth checking the calendar before proposing dates.
Do I need to stay near the clinic?
It makes the first week considerably easier. Day 1 and day 2 are consecutive attendances, and the days immediately after surgery are not the ones to spend crossing the city.
Can I fly on the day my sutures come out?
Possible but tight. A buffer of two or three days after the last appointment leaves room for an appointment moving or an extra check being warranted.
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.