Is it common for doctors to move to other clinics?

[cocopeach]

A friend of mine had work done a number of years ago, she went to POP Plastic. During this time, the lead surgeon and director was Dr. Bohyung Lee. This is who she had gotten work done from. She raves about the results she got all the time. She was recently looking to go back for some more work only to find out that Dr. Bohyung Lee is no longer with POP PS. They didn’t give her much information nor said why he left.

She started doing some digging on her own and it turns out that he had moved to a different clinic, NOTE Plastic. She also saw some listing about him also formerly being part of ILUMI Plastic. Looking into him a bit more, it appears he got his medical surgeon license in 2015 so he had been a surgeon for just 11 years.

She got a bit concerned with this. Not that she had a bad outcome, as I said she loved the work he did the first time. But rather because he had been part of three different clinics in just 11 years. We are both used to doctors staying with the same clinics for years and years here in the US.

So I wanted to ask if this was a common thing for South Korea, specifically for plastic surgeons, like for them to work for several different clinics like this in just 10 or so years.

[BECKII]

It is fairly common. The best doctors are fought over by various clinics and if one clinic is willing to offer better pay, the doctor will move. This is likely what happened here. Some will also leave to start their own clinics.