How a first rhinoplasty consultation is actually run in Gangnam: what is examined before shape is discussed, what a 3D CT shows, and how the plan is built.
Most people who search for rhinoplasty in Gangnam arrive with a picture in their head and a question about price. A first consultation at Edition Plastic Surgery starts somewhere else entirely: with an examination that has nothing to do with the shape you came in asking for. This page walks through that hour in the order it actually happens, so that you know what is being looked at, what is being decided, and what is deliberately left open.
This is not a guide to choosing a surgeon. If that is the question you are working on — how to verify a specialist certificate, what a Korean board certification means, who is allowed to operate on you — that belongs to How to Choose a Rhinoplasty Surgeon in Korea. That article is about the decision you make before you book. This one begins after you have booked and are sitting in the room.
It also stays away from individual nose shapes. A hump, a bulbous tip, a deviated bridge, a short nose — each of those has its own diagnosis and its own page. Here the subject is the process itself: the sequence, the instruments, the questions, and the reasons behind the order they come in.
A first rhinoplasty consultation is an examination before it is a design meeting. The surgeon assesses skin thickness, cartilage strength, septal quantity and the internal airway — usually with a 3D CT scan — before any shape is discussed. The bridge and the tip are then diagnosed as two separate problems, and height is derived from facial proportion rather than from a requested number. Surgical fees are decided only after the scan and the consultation.
On this page
- What is examined before anyone talks about shape
- What a 3D CT shows that a photograph cannot
- Why the bridge and the tip are two separate decisions
- Where the height of a nose actually comes from
- What you are asked to bring and to describe
- What gets written down, and what stays open
- What is scheduled once a plan exists
- The photographs taken in the room, and why they are standardised
- Three ways a consultation goes wrong when shape comes first
- Between the consultation and the operating day
- What a first consultation cannot settle
- Questions patients ask
What is examined before anyone talks about shape
The first part of the consultation is physical. The surgeon looks at the nose from the front, from a three-quarter angle and from the side, then touches it. Four findings come out of that, and none of them is a shape.
Skin thickness. Skin is the layer that everything underneath has to show through. Thin skin transmits every edge of the structure below it, so the plan has to be conservative and the transitions have to be smooth. Thick skin absorbs detail, so the same cartilage work reads as less definition from the outside. This single finding changes what is realistic more than almost anything else, and it is established in the first two minutes.
Cartilage strength and tip support. The tip of the nose is not held up by skin. It is held up by cartilage, and that cartilage is under constant load — smiling, yawning, opening the mouth wide all pull on it. A tip that is already soft to the touch will behave differently over the years from a tip that is firm, and the plan has to account for that from the start rather than correct for it later.
Septal quantity and quality. The septum is the wall inside the nose. It is a functional structure and, at the same time, the most convenient source of graft material. Whether there is enough of it, and whether it is straight enough to use, decides part of the surgical plan before any other material is considered.
The airway. Breathing is asked about directly, on both sides, and separately from anything cosmetic. Some people have lived with a blocked side for so long that they no longer report it as a symptom. It still matters, because a shape correction that ignores it can make it worse.
Only after those four findings are on the table does the conversation move to what you want. The order is not a formality. A desired shape assessed against unknown skin, unknown cartilage and unknown septum is a wish; the same shape assessed against measured tissue is a plan.
What a 3D CT shows that a photograph cannot
Edition uses a 3D CT scanner (HDX WILL) as part of the assessment for nose surgery. A scan is not a picture of your face. It is a picture of the bone and cartilage under your face, and it answers questions that no external view can.
Three of those questions come up in almost every first consultation.
Is the deviation you can see coming from bone, from the septum, or from soft tissue? All three look the same from the outside. They are corrected in completely different ways, and correcting the wrong one leaves the cause in place.
How much septal cartilage is actually there? A septum that looks unremarkable from outside can be thin, previously fractured, or deviated in a way that reduces the usable portion. If the plan depends on septal cartilage and there is not enough of it, that is far better known in advance than discovered during surgery.
Is the airway narrowed, and where? A CT distinguishes a structural narrowing from swelling of the lining, which is the difference between something surgery can address and something it cannot.
“It is difficult for me to give you a definite answer without seeing you in person. If you can come in, I will examine you directly, take a CT so that the state of the inside of the nose is accurately understood, and then build a plan that matches the impression you want as closely as possible.” — Dr. Dae-hee Han, written consultation reply
What the scan does not do is decide the operation. It removes guesswork about structure; it says nothing about proportion, about how a line will read on your face, or about what you actually want. Those remain judgments. The scan narrows the range of honest options — it does not choose among them. The scan itself, what it measures and what it leaves unanswered, is covered in more detail in 3D CT Before a First Rhinoplasty.
Why the bridge and the tip are two separate decisions
Patients tend to describe the nose as one object. Surgically it behaves as two, and a first consultation separates them on purpose.
The bridge — the dorsum — is largely a question of height, width and straightness. It sits on bone at the top and cartilage below, and what can be done to it is bounded by the skeleton underneath and the skin over it.
The tip is a question of projection, rotation, width and support. It is built from cartilage, and it lives under mechanical load for the rest of your life. Its position is not only an aesthetic decision; it is a structural one.
They are diagnosed separately because they fail separately. A bridge raised without attention to the tip produces a nose where the two halves do not belong to the same line. A tip rotated without regard to the bridge changes the profile in a way nobody asked for. The consultation records two findings, two goals and two sets of limits — and only then asks how they connect.
That connection is where a nose either reads as natural or reads as operated. It has enough behind it to be its own subject, and this page deliberately stops at the point of separating the two decisions rather than following the line between them.
Where the height of a nose actually comes from
The most common request in a first consultation is for a specific height, usually described by comparison. The most common surprise is that height is not chosen this way.
The face has a centre, and the nose is it. Two lines run through that centre: one from the forehead down the bridge, and one from beneath the tip down to the upper lip. The nose sits between the cheekbones, and the height of the bridge changes how wide the middle of the face reads. Raise it beyond what the rest of the face supports and the result is not a taller nose — it is a face that looks narrower and longer than it is, with a nose that announces itself.
“At Edition we do not operate by looking at the nose alone. The design takes the proportions and harmony of the whole face into account.” — Dr. Dae-hee Han, written consultation reply
In practice this means a number requested in millimetres is treated as a direction rather than an instruction. The surgeon works out the range that the forehead-to-tip line, the facial width and the skin will carry, and the conversation happens inside that range. Where the range comes from, and why the same height reads so differently on two faces, is the subject of Why a Nose Is Never Planned Alone.
What you are asked to bring and to describe
A first consultation goes faster and lands more accurately when a few things come with you. None of these is a formality.
| Bring | Why it changes the consultation |
|---|---|
| Any prior nasal surgery or injury records | Old fractures and prior procedures change what the tissue can take, even when they are decades old and were never treated. |
| A list of medicines and supplements | Omega-3, vitamin supplements and red ginseng are stopped roughly one week before surgery. Knowing what you take early prevents a schedule from being rebuilt later. |
| Filler, thread or injection history in the nose | Material placed in the nose previously is removed during surgery. It has to be known about in advance because it affects the dissection. |
| Photographs of yourself, not only of other people | Older photographs of your own face show how your nose has changed, which is information no reference image can provide. |
| Your breathing history, side by side | Long-standing one-sided obstruction is often not reported unless asked about directly. |
You will also be asked to describe what bothers you. This is harder than it sounds, and the words people reach for — “natural”, “smaller”, “refined” — are read very differently by two people looking at the same face. Being precise about the complaint rather than the solution changes the consultation more than any reference photograph does. The vocabulary itself, including which words are routinely misread and what to say instead, is handled in How to Describe the Nose You Want in a Consultation.
What gets written down, and what stays open
By the end of a first consultation there is a written plan, and it has a particular shape. It records the diagnosis for the bridge and the tip separately. It records the structural limits — skin thickness, available cartilage, airway findings. It records the goal in terms of the line to be produced rather than a millimetre target. And it records what is not being done, which is often the more useful half.
Some things stay open on purpose. Material choice is one of them. Whether a plan uses septal cartilage, rib cartilage, dermis or a shaped implant follows from the diagnosis, and pinning it down before the diagnosis is complete inverts the order. Each of those materials has its own conditions and its own limits, and they are covered on their own pages rather than settled in a first meeting.
The other thing that stays open is certainty. A consultation produces a plan, not a promise. Tissue behaves individually, healing behaves individually, and a surgeon who narrows that honestly will describe a range rather than a result.
“I do not use categorical expressions such as absolute expressions. Explaining both the possible change and its limits, given each person’s different facial conditions, is what makes a consultation trustworthy.” — Dr. Dae-hee Han, written statement of practice philosophy
What is scheduled once a plan exists
If you decide to proceed, the consultation ends by putting dates and rules around the operation. These are the fixed points at Edition, and they are worth knowing before you plan anything around them.
| Item | At Edition |
|---|---|
| Total operating time | 1.5 to 3.5 hours, depending on what the plan includes |
| Fasting before surgery | 8 hours for sedation, 12 hours for general anaesthesia |
| Medicines stopped beforehand | Omega-3, vitamin supplements and red ginseng, about 1 week |
| Nasal packing removed | 2 days after surgery |
| Stitches removed | 14 days for ear cartilage and autologous rib cartilage cases |
| Return to social activity | Around 7 days |
| Scheduled follow-up visits | Day 1, day 5, 2 weeks, 1 month, 3 months and 6 months |
Two points about that table are easy to miss. The first is that “return to social activity” is not the same as “fully healed”; it is the point at which most people are comfortable being seen. The second is that the follow-up schedule runs to six months, which reflects how long a nose keeps changing after surgery. Swelling in the tip in particular settles slowly, and a nose assessed at one month is not the nose you will have.
Surgery is carried out by Dr. Han himself, and so are the follow-up visits. Fee guidance is a separate conversation, handled by the clinic’s consultation manager, and it happens after the scan and the plan rather than before them.
“The cost of surgery is decided after the state of the inside of the nose has been checked with a CT scan and discussed in consultation. General guidance on cost is given through the consultation manager.” — Dr. Dae-hee Han, written consultation reply
The photographs taken in the room, and why they are standardised
Clinical photographs are taken at fixed angles, at a fixed distance, under the same light, with the hair pulled back and the face relaxed. That rigidity is the point. A nose photographed from slightly below looks shorter and more rotated; the same nose from slightly above looks longer and more drooping. Without a fixed protocol, two images taken weeks apart cannot be compared, and the six-month follow-up schedule depends on exactly that comparison being possible.
These images are also the surface the plan is drawn on. Lines are marked on a photograph rather than on a mirror because a mirror shows you a moving, three-dimensional object and agreement about a moving object is unreliable. When the surgeon draws the intended line and shows it back to you, both of you are looking at the same fixed frame — which is the only way to find out that you meant different things by the same word before, rather than after, surgery.
They are clinical records, not marketing material. Korean medical advertising law places strict limits on the use of before-and-after imagery, and photographs taken during a consultation are used for planning and follow-up.
Three ways a consultation goes wrong when shape comes first
The order described on this page is not a house style. Each step of it exists because reversing it produces a predictable failure.
A plan built on unmeasured tissue changes on the table. If a design assumes septal cartilage that turns out not to be there, the operation has to improvise. Improvisation is not the same as flexibility: it means a decision that should have been made with you, in a room, with time, is instead made without you, under a clock.
A shape agreed in words is not a shape agreed. Two people can use “natural” for twenty minutes and mean opposite things. This is why the plan is drawn and shown back rather than described, and why the complaint — what bothers you now — carries more weight in the record than the solution you arrived with.
A cosmetic plan that ignores the airway can cost you breathing. Narrowing a nose that is already structurally tight is a straightforward way to turn a shape complaint into a functional one. Asking about breathing before discussing shape is the cheapest possible insurance against that.
Between the consultation and the operating day
A plan agreed at a first visit is not sealed. Anaesthesia is decided together with the plan, and the fasting rule follows from that choice rather than the other way round — eight hours for sedation, twelve for general anaesthesia. Supplements that affect bleeding are stopped about a week ahead, which is why the medication list is collected at the first visit rather than the last.
If anything about your health changes in between — a cold, a new prescription, a dental procedure, a planned trip — it is worth saying so before the day rather than on it. Most of these change nothing. The few that do are far easier to handle with a week of notice than with an hour of it.
What a first consultation cannot settle
It is worth being clear about the limits, because a consultation that promises too much is the wrong kind of reassuring.
It cannot guarantee an outcome. It can describe the range of change that the tissue allows and the ways that range is usually narrowed by skin thickness, cartilage strength and previous surgery.
It cannot promise the absence of complications. Bleeding, infection, swelling, asymmetry and scarring are possible in any surgical procedure, and the useful conversation is about how each is monitored and managed rather than whether it can be ruled out.
It cannot decide what you want on your behalf. The most common reason a plan is postponed at Edition is not a structural finding — it is that the goal is still described in someone else’s face. There is no cost to going away and coming back with a clearer complaint.
And it cannot substitute for an in-person examination. Photographs sent in advance are useful for orientation and nothing more; skin thickness, cartilage strength and septal quantity cannot be assessed from an image.
Questions patients ask
How long does a first consultation take?
Long enough to examine, scan and plan rather than a fixed slot. Expect the examination and the CT to take up the first part of the appointment and the discussion of the plan to follow it, not the other way round.
Do I need a 3D CT if I only want a small change?
The scan is used to establish internal structure, and “small change” is a description of the goal rather than of the anatomy. A modest shape request can still sit on a deviated septum or a limited amount of cartilage, which is exactly what the scan is there to find.
Can I be given a price before the consultation?
General guidance is available through the consultation manager, but the fee for surgery is decided after the CT and the consultation, because it follows from what the operation involves.
What if the surgeon disagrees with what I am asking for?
Then you will be told so, along with the reason and the alternative. A request that the structure cannot support is declined rather than attempted at reduced ambition, because a plan built against the tissue does not become safer by being smaller.
I had a nose operation years ago. Is this the same consultation?
No. A previously operated nose is assessed differently, because scar tissue, prior implants and contracture change both the examination and the plan. Revision has its own consultation pathway and its own set of pages.
Is the surgeon who consults me the one who operates?
At Edition, consultation, surgery and follow-up for nose surgery are carried out by Dr. Dae-hee Han. Fee guidance is given by the consultation manager.
About the author
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. Eighteen years in practice since medical licensure in 2009; thirteen years as a board-certified plastic surgeon. 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.