Honest and Thorough Review

Treatment Provider

Provider Review

• 2 Mar 2018

Pros: I can breathe much better, my nose isn't aesthetically that bad, I didn't have any serious complications from surgery, they are good with fillers Cons: office is SO disorganized (includes front desk, patient care coordinator, and aestheticians), the aestheticians here cheat you out of services you pay for, there is conflicting and repetitive information in preop and post op packets, I paid over 20k for a mediocre nose, they are always behind schedule I am a little more than 8 months out from my rhinoplasty with Dr. Yoo and have waited for most of the swelling to go down before writing this review. I had an Asian rhinoplasty, and consulted with 12 surgeons before choosing Dr. Yoo because he was the only one who guaranteed me a natural but dramatic result, some surgeons I saw only said they could provide minimal change. I saw him originally for fillers to test his aesthetic eye and skill and was satisfied with the results. In hindsight this was flawed logic since surgery is completely different than injections but it made sense to me at the time. I basically wanted what Korean nose surgery looks like, but with my natural rib cartilage instead of a silicone implant. In Korea, they do noses so they look Asian, but with a tall and straight bridge with a little bit of a natural slope, and narrow and feminine tip. I showed him many photos ahead of time showing what I wanted and I thought we were on the same page. I don't hate the nose I got, but the bridge is far too tall for my face. From the side I look ridiculous and it looks nothing like the photoshopped image he showed me in my consultation. I told him I planned to get jaw reduction surgery some day and with this huge nose I feel I will need a revision because it is already too big for my face and does not look natural. I hope it will keep shrinking as swelling continues to go down. Again, I don't hate it, but after all is said and done, the surgery (surgeon fee, anesthesia, surgery center) and the anti swelling treatments and the hotel were $23,000. I do not think this was a $23,000 nose job experience, probably more like a $10,000 experience. The surgery experience: You go to the surgery center where nurses ask you preop questions and you get your IV in. You also meet with an anesthesiologist and Dr. Yoo one final time before surgery. Then you kind of awkwardly climb onto an operating table yourself and get put to sleep. Waking up is disorienting, and I had extreme nausea. This has never happened to me in surgery before and I have had other surgeries under general anesthesia. I was hoping Dr. Yoo would be there to tell me how the surgery went but the nurse said he had gone home an hour earlier. This isn't the end of the world but I didn't feel like he cared very much about how I was doing I guess. Post op: I had my post op appointment the next afternoon and when I asked how the surgery went he told me "good," and I had been hoping for a little more than that. As usual, the office was running about 30 minutes behind. The first day caused me a lot of pain, but as each day in the first week post op goes by it gets easier. The only thing that hurt was my rib, but my nose didn't cause pain. I didn't have bruising or swelling on my face so I could go out in public with the cast on. You can sleep sitting up, and technically shower, but it was super hard to do without getting the cast wet. I ended up just washing my hair in the sink and using wipes to clean myself because I was worried if I wet the cast it would hurt the results of the surgery. You have to clean your nose with multiple products many times each day, and the same goes for the cut in your head if you need DCF for your surgery. Week two post op was easier than week 1. Still uncomfortable in the rib area, very sensitive for me but everything else was healing nicely. Just annoying to have to clean everything, but you can do it less frequently than week one. However, I experienced an insane nose bleed that wouldn't stop, which is not common on week 2, on a Friday night. The nose bleed lasted more than 24 hours, and it was impossible to reach Dr. Yoo. There was no on call Dr and no emergency line. As a last resort I called the surgery center's 24 hour line and the nurse told me to go to the emergency room because she wasn't sure if it was normal or if it was a complication. I know doctors need privacy but I had a whole weekend of anxiety and stress trying to get ahold of any surgeon in the Nassif office unsuccessfully and I felt this could have been prevented. It's hard not to panic when you're bleeding uncontrollably. Months 1 to 3: Swelling goes down each week. I went back to get treatments from the aestheticians and post op appointments with Dr. Yoo. The aesthetician (Audrey??) swore that the infamous namebrand Hydrafacial would balance my skin out after surgery so I believed her and shelled out $300 just for the facial each time. For Christmas I got a gift certificate to a spa in the Bay Area and I used it on a Hydrafacial. I learned that not only does Dr. Yoo's office charge double what everyone else charges, but she ALWYAS skipped 2 of the 4 steps EVERY Hydrafacial has. So I paid twice as much for half the treatment. This explains why every office that offers this treatment lists it as 45 minutes to an hour, while I was in and out in less than 25 minutes here. I can't help but feel this is deceptive and wrong, $1200 down the drain. Months 4 to 6: Swelling continues to go down. Audrey (???) was right about one thing, Hydrafacials DID help my skin get back to normal, but only when I started going somewhere else to do them where I got all 4 steps of the treatment. Had my follow up with Dr. Yoo not too long ago, and I feel that he is a good guy. I think we just had different aesthetic visions for my nose. Experiences with the office: The patient care coordinator never responded to my emails. Even when booking dates for surgery and travel she ignored me for days, sometimes a week or more. I found this annoying since it made it challenging to book travel. The packets she sent for pre and post op were outdated and had conflicting information on what you can and can't do, and what prescriptions to take and when. With a simple excel spreadsheet this could be resolved. I had to remind her about when my bloodwork was due and when to call in my prescriptions since she didn't initiate any of these things herself. I know this isn't Dr. Yoo's fault but as a patient here you definitely had to be on top of every single date and advocate for yourself. The front desk staff is hit or miss, sometimes you get nice people and sometimes they can't answer basic questions ("what time does the parking garage under the office close?"). Same with the nurses/medical assistants. They gave me a lot of conflicting information as well, like Dr. Yoo said you don't need to sleep upright after 2 weeks but you should be taping your nose, and earlier the assistant had told me you had to wait 4 weeks until sleeping flat and not to tape my nose at all. Overall, I expected the best experience here, which is why I originally didn't mind paying as much as I did. In reality, Dr. Yoo is a good surgeon, but he does one style of nose. And the office is disorganized at best, which was so frustrating as a customer/patient. I recommend consulting in person with him because he could be the right surgeon for you, but I'm not convinced he was right for me.