Turkey Surgery Trip Planner

Eight to ten days for most primary operations: a day to arrive, a day for the consultation and tests, the operation itself with a night in hospital, several days of rest, and the cast removal at about day seven before you fly. Revision surgery and rib grafting add two or three days. A tip plasty alone can be done in about a week. Book your return flight flexibly — the one date you cannot move is the cast removal, and everything else is arranged around it.

Two weeks is the usual answer for desk work, by which point bruising has gone and concealer handles the rest. If your job is physical, involves heavy lifting, or carries any risk of a knock to the face, four to six weeks is more realistic and your surgeon should give you a specific date. People who work on camera or in front of clients often take three weeks, because residual swelling that strangers cannot see is still visible to people who know your face.

Ask this before you book, because it is the weakest point of treatment abroad. A well-organised clinic gives you a named contact, a schedule of photographs to send at one, three, six and twelve months, and a written note you can hand to a doctor at home. What no clinic can give you from another country is an in-person examination if something goes wrong at week three. Find out in advance who you would see locally, what it would cost, and what the clinic's revision policy says about travel.