Your Surgery Timeline
The Sequence, From Examination to Discharge
Surgery is one day inside a sequence that begins with an examination and ends when I have seen how you healed. The order is the same for every international patient: the in-person examination and the final plan, the morning of surgery, the operation itself, the monitoring your procedure requires, a series of clinic visits at which dressings, drains and sutures are managed, a fit-to-fly check, and follow-up that continues after you are home.
This page is about what is done at each of those points and who does it. How the trip around them is arranged is set out on travelling to Istanbul, and what healing actually feels like is taken stage by stage in the recovery guide. What I want you to have before you arrive is the sequence — because a patient who knows what comes next is a calmer patient, and calmer patients recover better.
Your In-Person Examination and Final Plan
The examination before surgery is where the plan stops being provisional. I look at your face in person, move the tissues myself, and either confirm what your photographs suggested or correct it. If the examination changes the plan, you are told then — before surgery, not afterwards.
Because your medical history, medications and previous surgery were collected while you were still at home, this visit is short. Pre-operative blood tests and any assessment your history calls for are done here, the anaesthetist reviews you, consent is gone through line by line rather than handed to you to sign, and standardised photographs are taken in the clinic's own lighting. You leave knowing exactly which operation is booked and what it does not include. If you have not sent photographs yet, that is where this starts.
The Morning of Surgery
You come in fasted, and the first thing done is the markings. They are drawn while you are sitting upright and awake, because gravity moves everything the moment you lie down and a plan marked on a reclined face is a plan drawn on the wrong face. You watch them being drawn.
After that the checklist: consent confirmed, the anaesthetist's second review, the surgical plan read back with you present. Nothing about the operation is decided in the anaesthetic room. The operation you were consented for is the operation that is performed, and if you want to ask one more question while the markings are still wet, ask it.
Anaesthesia and How You Are Monitored
A facelift is performed under general anaesthesia, given by a consultant anaesthetist in a fully equipped hospital with intensive-care backup rather than in a clinic treatment room. Smaller isolated procedures — fat transfer on its own, for example — can be done under local anaesthesia with sedation, and that is decided by the operation, not by convenience.
Your blood pressure is controlled deliberately from the moment you are asleep and it goes on being controlled on the ward afterwards. This matters more than it sounds: steady blood pressure through and after the operation is the single most useful thing that can be done to keep a haematoma from forming. Where surgery is performed, and how to verify that for any surgeon, is covered on safety and standards.
What Happens While You Are Asleep
The operation follows the same order every time. The incisions are placed where they will heal into the natural lines of the face and the hairline; the deep plane is elevated; the retaining ligaments that hold the descended tissue down are released; the deep layer is repositioned and fixed where it is meant to sit. The skin is handled last, and it is laid back without tension and trimmed rather than pulled — which is why the result should not look tightened.
Then the part no one photographs: haemostasis is checked, and checked again, before anything is closed. Time spent there is time not spent draining a haematoma the following night. What is actually being lifted and released is described on the deep plane facelift page.
Drains and the Hemostatic Net
I use both a drain and a hemostatic net, and patients are rarely told about the second one. The drain takes away the small amount of fluid that collects under a freshly elevated flap. The net is a series of fine sutures passed through the skin onto the tissue beneath it, holding the flap down against the surface it has to heal to, so that blood has nowhere to gather in the first place.
The net is the reason patients treated this way bruise less than they were expecting. Its sutures are non-absorbable and they come out early, at one of your first clinic visits, well before they could leave any mark on the skin. The drain comes out at a clinic visit too, once it has stopped producing — not on a date fixed in advance.
The technique is not my invention. It was described and published by Auersvald, and it has since been validated in larger consecutive series; the references are at the foot of this page. I mention it here because it changes what your first days look like, and because you should be able to ask any surgeon whether they use one.
Your First Night
You are monitored on the ward through the first night, and the observations are frequent at the start: blood pressure, the drain, the dressing, and how you feel. Your head stays elevated. You will be asked to move very little and to talk less than you want to.
What patients describe is tightness rather than pain, and it is treated with simple analgesia. There is one symptom you are told to report the moment you notice it: pain that is sudden, one-sided and increasing. That is what a developing haematoma feels like, and reporting it early is the difference between a small procedure and a large problem.
Leaving Hospital
You are discharged when your observations are stable and I have seen your face that morning — not on a day written into a schedule before you arrived. Patients who need to stay longer stay longer, and it costs them an explanation rather than an argument.
You leave with the dressing in place, written instructions, the medication you need and a direct number for the coordination team. The date and purpose of your next visit are fixed before you leave the building, so you go back to the hotel knowing when you are next seen and what will be done.
What Each Clinic Visit Actually Involves
I will not tell you how many visits you will have, because it depends on what was done and on how you are healing, and a number invented for a website is worth nothing to you. What I can tell you is what those visits contain, in order: the dressing is changed and the wounds inspected; the drain is removed once it has stopped producing; the hemostatic net sutures are taken out early; your hair is washed for the first time at the clinic rather than by you at the hotel; and the incision sutures are dealt with when the skin is ready for it.
Whether those incision sutures dissolve on their own or have to be removed is decided by your skin at the time of closure, not chosen in advance. Two other things are worth stating plainly: you see me at these visits and not only a nurse, and each visit ends with the next one booked. What you should be seeing in the mirror between them is described in the recovery guide.
The Fit-to-Fly Check
The last visit before you travel is a medical decision and it is mine to make. I look at the wounds, the swelling, the ears and the hairline, and I say yes or I say not yet — because a long flight after facial surgery is not a neutral event, and an airline booking is not a clinical opinion.
Book a return ticket you can change. Most patients fly on the day we planned; the reason the decision is left to the final check is so that the alternative exists without anyone having to negotiate for it. Who arranges what around that flight, and how long patients typically end up staying, are on travelling to Istanbul.
Follow-Up After You Fly Home
Follow-up continues remotely, and it is not a courtesy message. You send photographs at agreed intervals and I review them myself; between those points you have a direct line to the team that operated on you rather than to a call centre.
If a doctor where you live needs to be involved, we send them the operative details they need the first time they are asked. Your incisions, your swelling and the way the result settles are followed until I am satisfied with them, which is a longer horizon than most patients expect. What the money side of that aftercare covers is set out on the international patient FAQs.
Who Does What
Three groups look after you, and knowing which is which saves you a great deal of anxiety. I perform the examination, draw the markings, carry out the operation and make every clinical decision around it, including the one about when you may fly. The anaesthetist and the hospital ward team look after you through the operation and the night that follows it.
The patient coordination team handles dates, documents, hotel and transfer arrangements, and they are the number you call first. They do not give clinical advice — and they do not need to, because anything clinical reaches me the same day. If you are ever told something clinical by someone who is not a doctor, that is the moment to ask for me.
Frequently Asked Questions
Will I meet Dr. Yilmaz before the day of surgery, or only in the operating theatre?
Before. You are examined in person at the clinic before your operation is confirmed, and that examination is done by me. I also draw your markings on the morning of surgery and see you at your clinic visits afterwards. If a surgeon cannot tell you when you will meet them, that tells you how the rest of the care will be organised.
Who draws the markings, and when?
I do, on the morning of surgery, while you are sitting upright and awake. Markings drawn on a reclining face describe a face that does not exist once you stand up. You watch them being drawn and the plan is read back to you before you are taken through.
Do you use drains?
Yes. A drain removes the small amount of fluid that collects under a newly elevated flap, and it comes out at a clinic visit once it has stopped producing rather than on a pre-set date. It is uncomfortable to think about and almost unnoticeable to remove.
What is a hemostatic net, and does it hurt when it comes out?
It is a set of fine sutures passed through the skin onto the tissue underneath, holding the lifted flap down so blood cannot collect beneath it. It is the reason patients bruise less than they expect. The sutures are non-absorbable and are taken out early, at one of your first clinic visits — most patients describe it as strange rather than painful.
Will my stitches dissolve, or do they have to be taken out?
It depends on your skin, and it is decided at the time of closure rather than promised in advance. Some incisions are closed with absorbable sutures; others are closed with sutures that are removed at a clinic visit once the skin is ready. The hemostatic net sutures are always removed, and always early.
How many clinic visits will I have?
There is no fixed number, and I would not trust one. It depends on the operation you had and on how you are healing. Every visit has a defined purpose — dressing, drain, net sutures, wound check, first hair wash, incision sutures — and each one ends with the next appointment booked before you leave.
Who decides when I can fly home?
I do, at your final check, and only if the wounds and the swelling are where they should be. That is why I ask patients to book a return ticket they can change: the decision is medical, and it is made when there is something to look at rather than when the flight was booked.
What happens if something worries me after I have flown home?
You contact the coordination team and you get an answer from the people who operated on you. You send photographs at agreed intervals in any case, and I review them personally. Where a doctor in your own country needs to be involved, we provide the operative details they need.
Is the sequence different if I have more than one procedure at the same time?
The sequence is the same; the operation is longer and the monitoring around it is closer. Combining procedures is usually one anaesthetic and one recovery rather than two, which is why it is often the safer choice — that reasoning is set out on combined facial procedures.
Start Your Assessment
Start with photographs, not with a date. Send them over WhatsApp or through the form and you will receive my own assessment of what your anatomy calls for, an expected length of stay and an itemised quote before anything is arranged.
Request a personal review See before & after results
Every enquiry is reviewed personally by Dr. Yilmaz; scheduling is handled by the patient coordination team.
About Dr. Muhsin Yilmaz
Written and medically reviewed by Muhsin Yilmaz, MD, FEBOPRAS — Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeon. Last reviewed: September 2026.
Dr. Muhsin Yilmaz is a double board-certified plastic surgeon (FEBOPRAS and the Turkish Board of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgery) practising in Istanbul, Türkiye. His practice is focused on facial and neck rejuvenation, centred on the deep plane facelift, performed at Acıbadem Kartal Hospital. He is a member of TSPRAS and ISAPS, and is registered with the Turkish Ministry of Health for international health tourism. Read his full profile.
References
- Auersvald A, Auersvald LA. Hemostatic net in rhytidoplasty: an efficient and safe method for preventing hematoma in 405 consecutive patients. Aesthetic Plast Surg. 2014;38(1):1–9. doi:10.1007/s00266-013-0202-5
- Pellini E, Finocchi V, Albanese R. Innovations in rhytidoplasty: 480 cases validating the efficacy of the inner hemostatic net. Aesthet Surg J. 2025;45(8):875–881. doi:10.1093/asj/sjaf108