Over Charged, over Promised, but failed to deliver - San Francisco, CA

I went to Dr. Kim for a scar revision on my face. I realize that scars cannot be erased and can be challenging to improve. However, when choosing a facial plastic surgeon, it is imperative to find one that is honest, reliable, and who will set realistic expectations. In my experience, Dr. Kim and his staff lacked these qualities.

Dr. Kim's office is extremely disorganized and poorly run. He is way too busy to take proper care of his patients. Scheduling the surgery was a stressful mess. His patient coordinator, Nanette, pressured me into booking my surgery ASAP because he was almost completely booked for the holidays. (This was in early September). So I booked a surgery date but then Nanette changed it at least 3 different times due to Dr. Kim's crazy busy schedule. I was also told that it would be a simple in-office procedure but I ended up having to drive to a surgery center in Marin because of Dr. Kim's overbooked schedule. To make matters worse, the surgery center called me the day before my surgery and told me that I had to pay an additional $900 surgery center fee, which was not disclosed to me by Dr. Kim's office. I ended up not having to pay the fee, but this is not a call that I should have received on a Friday night right before a Monday morning surgery.

As far as the surgery results go, Dr. Kim over-promised and under-delivered. During my consultation, he told me that he thought he could make my scar "significantly better". His price was also much higher than the other doctors that I had consulted with, but I thought I was paying for an expert doctor who was "confident that he could help." In retrospect, I should have gone with one of the other doctors who was more honest and realistic.

When Dr. Kim removed the stitches after the surgery, he said the scar "looked perfect and would only continue to get better". It did not get better. In fact, it got worse as it healed, widening, stretching out and becoming indented. It has now been almost a year since my surgery and the scar does not look much different than it did before the surgery. It certainly does not look "perfect" or even "significantly better". To make matters worse, his aftercare was very poor. Every time I wanted to see Dr. Kim for a follow up appointment, it took at least 5 weeks to be seen. This is an unacceptable wait time for a current patient that has questions/concerns about a recent procedure.

I had yet another negative experience during one of my follow-up visits. I asked Dr. Kim if I could have a filler injected into my scar to help with the indentation and he told me that he would send his nurse in to help me. However, when the nurse arrived, she refused to do the injection because of a "risk of blindness" due to the location of the scar. Dr. Kim clearly doesn't even know or seem to care what a nurse in his practice is capable of doing! Well, I went to another doctor who safety did the filler injection and obviously I am not blind if I am sitting here typing this review.

After experiencing a traumatic injury to my face, I had hoped to find a trustworthy doctor to help me as much as possible. However, my experience with Dr. Kim only further traumatized me.