The Line Plastic Surgery Clinic

The Line occupies three floors of a building on Garosu-gil in Sinsa-dong, eight minutes from Sinsa Station. It is surgeon-owned rather than a chain: the two co-directors both consult and operate, and between them hold board certification in plastic surgery and in general surgery. The floors are split by function - consultation on 4F, aftercare and the laboratory on 5F, four operating rooms on 6F, with four inpatient beds.

The accreditation record is unusual for a clinic this size. It is JCI accredited, assessed against 289 standards and 1,149 measurable elements, and holds ISO 9001 certification for medical service quality, first awarded in 2009. It is designated by the Ministry of Health and Welfare as an institution registered to treat foreign patients, which carries a requirement to hold medical dispute insurance covering them.

Anaesthesia is handled by a board-certified anaesthesiologist on site rather than by the operating surgeon, which is the single most useful safety question to ask of any outpatient surgical clinic in Korea. The clinic also operates an autologous transfusion system, keeps emergency power and a code blue protocol, and names three tertiary hospitals as emergency transfer partners: Gangnam Severance, Seoul St. Mary's and Kyung Hee University Medical Center.

An in-house cell laboratory, Cell Matrix Lab, processes the stromal vascular fraction used in the clinic's SVF liposuction and fat grafting. In 2023 it was recognised by the Ministry of Science and ICT as a dedicated research department. Cumulative volume runs to roughly 80,000 body contouring and 100,000 facial cases.

Coordination runs in English, Chinese, Japanese and Thai, through WhatsApp, WeChat and LINE as well as email. The practice has operated since 2004 and under The Line name since 2007, opened a Thailand branch in 2013, and trains visiting surgeons from around fifty countries through its liposuction and facial surgery academies.