After finishing all the consultations and deciding on surgery, I’m writing this so I can look it up again, so I’ll be honest. For reference, I’m looking into revision surgery~
1. IONE I wanted to go because it’s a hospital specializing in eyes, but even just a consultation appointment, not surgery, was only available at the end of December, so I gave up on the consultation...ㅠㅠ
2. Siseon (Director Shin Jae-hoon) It was a single-director clinic and not large in scale, but I actually liked that. I made a weekend appointment and went, and it wasn’t very crowded. The consultation took about 40 minutes. The people waiting were in their 20s to 30s. What was unique was that I saw quite a few men.
The consultant who spoke with me looked a bit older, and I actually liked that too. Overall, I could feel that she had a lot of consultation experience. She explained by pinpointing only the necessary parts, and organized things well too.
The director here recommended upper canthoplasty + ptosis correction for me. Because I have asymmetry, he suggested making the eye larger upward to match the bigger eye. I said that even though I had ptosis correction in the past, my double eyelid came undone, so I asked whether it could come undone again in the future. He said that rather than fixing it too firmly and making it unnatural, it is better to make it natural and, if it loosens a bit, do it again. I liked that it didn’t feel like they were excessively recommending this and that.
Overall: Not “so good!” and not “isn’t this bad?” Just ordinary~
3. Luho (Director Park Jun-kyu) It’s a clinic with 4 directors, and it wasn’t small in scale. There were many staff members and many people waiting. Even though I went on a weekend, I had an appointment, and I even arrived about 15 minutes early, but I think I waited over an hour just for the director. The total consultation time was 2 hours. It was to the point where I wondered, if it’s like this, why make appointments...? Looking at the people waiting, there were many teenagers who came with their parents, and I also saw quite a few people of various nationalities.
They take photos before the consultation, and I also wondered why they do that... haha It seemed like this was taking up a lot of the consultation and waiting time. The clinic probably does it because they think it’s necessary, but from the patient’s perspective, it felt like an unnecessary process.
The consultant was close to a dislike for me. Most of the staff at this clinic either looked young, spoke Korean awkwardly, or just didn’t look very experienced. During the consultation, instead of looking at my eyes or face while explaining, she kept writing on the chart while consulting, so should I say it felt like her own notes were more important? haha It seemed like what mattered more wasn’t me sitting in front of her, but that she could feel how well she was recording things and how hard she was working. And when I first made the consultation appointment by phone, I asked for an approximate cost, but I couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t tell me anything at all. Even if not exact, I thought they could at least tell me roughly, and it was also the only clinic that did not disclose the surgery fee when making an appointment.
And because there are several directors, the surgery fee difference between the representative director and the other directors was large, and the discount only applied if you booked surgery on the consultation day or paid a deposit, so it felt a bit burdensome.
However...! The consultation with Director Park Jun-kyu was very good. As the waiting time got longer, I thought about just leaving in the middle, but since it felt like a waste after waiting, I just stayed, and I’d say it was somewhat worth the wait! He told me that because of my innate physical eye structure, my eyes are the type where it is difficult to see much effect from double eyelid surgery, and he explained while making the double eyelid line several times. He said upper canthoplasty could look unnatural because of my eye structure (and he was fairly honest, saying something like upper canthoplasty is close to a clinic marketing tactic, and that standards differ by clinic haha), so he recommended ptosis correction + posterior canthoplasty for me instead. He said to let go of the desire(?) to make the eyes higher no matter what, and rather lower the double eyelid line a bit and go naturally with an inner double eyelid feel. That part of what he said came across as very persuasive.
Overall: I disliked the waiting time and the consultant, but I liked the director!
(To be added)