If you’re getting major work done, there’s one thing your plastic surgeon may forget to tell you: update your passport photo. According to Kotaku, many women who are traveling to South Korea for plastic surgery are having trouble getting back into their home countries due to no longer resembling their own passport photos.
In order to fix this problem, Korean hospitals are now issuing each patient a “plastic surgery certificate” to help them return through immigration. These certificates are intended to reduce the number of calls being made to hospitals to confirm procedures.
The certificate includes items such as name, passport number, length of stay, and hospital visited, as well as an official seal. The issuing of certificates originally began three years ago but has increased due to the rising number of procedures being performed in South Korea.
With more than 360,000 procedures performed in 2010, South Korea has the highest rate of plastic surgery per population, according to ABC. The most common procedures reported include liposuction (which is used to sculpt many different parts of the body), rhinoplasty, blepharoplasty, and double eyelid surgery. Double eyelid surgeries accounted for 44,000 of the total surgeries reported.
One major reason many people are visiting South Korea for surgery is because they do not trust the doctors in their home countries. In an article published by Kotaku, plastic surgeon Park Byong-choon explains, “It comes from the mistrust of the system entrenched in their psyche. Chinese parents come to Korea even for childbirth. The death of a young singer under a Chinese cosmetic surgeon’s knife a few years ago makes people think twice about doing it at home.’”
In 2013, 25,176 visitors came to South Korea as medical tourists looking to get their surgeries. It appears this number is only increasing. Let’s hope they all remember to get their certificates!
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