South Korea Has Plenty of Botox But Not Enough Doctors

Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news. Good morning, it's the big day. I'm heading out to Korea today.

That's Julie Miller, a forty six year old stay at home mum from New Jersey. She's on her way to the airport to fly to South Korea.

As I'm sitting here, I am noticing all my neck issues, so I'm very, very excited for these treatments.

Those treatments, botox shots and skin tightening are the reason Julie's flying to Soul. It's a trip that will take her about a day, and the final bill for those treatments isn't cheap, about three thousand dollars, but it's almost half the cost of doing it back home, and Julie says they're worth the distance and every penny.

The biggest draw was people were very satisfied with their results, and that combined with a better price than we have in the US, it's like a no brainer.

Julie is among hundreds of thousands of tourists who travel from all over the world to South Korea every year for beauty treatments. Bloomberg senior reporter and Big Take Asia host One h has been reporting on the rise of medical tourism in the country.

South Korea's medical tourism business hit a record high of six hundred thousand people in twenty twenty three, and they're on track to get even higher. A third of the tourists came in for cosmetic procedures in twenty twenty three, and another twenty percent came into Korea for plastic surgery right now, plasty facelifts, all that fun stuff.

It's a growing industry for South Korea's economy, and the government wants to turn the country into a medical tourism herber in Asia. But as the beauty market thrives, the country's medical system faces other challenges.

All South Korea has been long suffering from this doctor shortage, especially in emergency rooms and critical care, and at the beginning of twenty twenty four, we saw these resident doctors strike to protest low wages and these long working hours. This has now been going on for almost a year.

Welcome to The Big Take Asia from Bloomberg News. I'm Rebecca Chung Wilkins. Every week we take you inside some of the world's biggest and most powerful economies and the markets, tycoons and businesses that drive this ever shifting region. Today on the show, the rise of medical tourism in South Korea and how it's colliding with a shrinking supply of doctors and a struggling medical system.

One.

Hello, hey there, how's it going.

Welcome.

It's kind of funny treating seeds, isn't it.

I know, so you usually sit on this end of the microphone, and finally I can put you in the hot seats. I'm going to try and spook you as much.

As possible as Farry.

Bloomberg's one hat is usually the host of The Big Take Asia, but this week she's in the hot seat to talk about her reporting on South Korea's medical tourism industry.

Medical tourism is this broad catch all that the government uses, and it runs the gamut from people coming in for health checkups, to cancer treatment, even to laser surgery. But for most medical tourists, it's really about plastic surgery and skincare.

Along with the rise of K pop, k beauty is enjoying a spectacular boom.

Everything about South Korean culture is so cool and hip these days. I mean the fact that you know, Squid Games is on television, Black Pinks Rosy per song apt is like the global hit right now, playing on radios and streaming everywhere. And so of course this whole K pop culture is really feeding into this beauty esthetic. Looking young, looking good, having dewy glass skin that really is a standard, not just for Koreans, but I think for a lot of young people all around the world.

Medical tourism isn't new. For years, people have been traveling to places like Thailand and Brazil for treatments, but South Korea is now seen as a rising destination for medical and cosmetic care, where people seek out some of the most affordable and advanced procedures to transform their bodies. It's a highly competitive industry and one the Korean government has been formally promoting since two thousand and nine.

The Korean government really wants to establish Korea as a medical tourism hub. The lawmakers in twenty sixteen past this law to support and help grow the medical tourism industry. And it's got a whole system to basically license companies that help to bring in these foreign patients to the clinics. It gives subsidies to the companies and to the industry.

And you recently went to South Korea for one of these treatments. Maybe that's why you're looking particularly glowing in twenty thirty five five.

Well, you know, as you say, while in Korea, do as the Koreans do. I mean, it's hard to be in Korea and not feel like, geez, there's something wrong with me. And I figured, since I'm writing about this, I figure I should just do it myself and experience for myself what that was like.

And what did your doctor tell you in your consultation?

Oh that was funny.

Hi.

My name is Juan yep So. I actually went to two consultations. The very first one was for the facial treatment that I got. I also went to go see a plastic surgeon and asked him what would you do to improve upon this? Here's here's what he said.

And you notice it's a really cookie and your TV serve ved if Bob was here. Our foreheads are really flat, so I recommend the fatcraft to hear. Your chin is a really small and retracted, so we will recommend the chin implant war shin advancement.

So essentially basically said, you shouldn't be walking out like you do every day. You really should be wearing a mask.

Yeah.

Yeah.

One eventually got a micro needling an ultrasound therapy to help lift and tighten her skin, and she says she did feel like she was glowing afterwards and would do it again. She got her treatments in Gangna. Yes, that's it's the same Gangnam that's featured in the song Gangnam Style.

Gangnam is a district in Soul and the name literally translates to south of the Han River, and it's known as South Korea's Beverly Hills actually because a lot of the wealthy residents and you've got these celebrities who live there as well, So both a residential area but also

Based on data from the International Society of Esthetic Plastic Surgery, the number of Korean cosmetic surgeons in private practice has nearly doubled in the past decade to more than twenty seven hundred, the highest concentration per capita globally. But South Korea also has one of the lowest ratios of doctors to population in the developed world, meaning there's not enough doctors to care for people in need of medical attention.

The doctors, they've been on strike for almost a year, some of them have resigned. There's a local media report that said the number of er doctors fell more than forty percent nationwide last year.

After the break. Where South Korea's medical tourism boom and its doctor shortage collides. South Korea has seen a boom in medical tourism in recent years, with hundreds of thousands of people coming from around the world to get popular

She's obgyn, an obstetrician gynecologist in her thirties, and she basically said, listen, life as a resident is awful, right. You don't make a lot of money to begin with, but you're working these crazy work weeks. She was saying that she had worked eighty hour weeks.

And in February last year, to address the shortfall of medical staff, the government proposed increasing the quota for medical students.

They proposed to increase medical school admissions by two thirds to about five thousand a year. You think that would be a good thing, right, getting more doctors into the pipeline, But in fact, the doctors were all up in arms about it.

And why are they upset about the government increasing admissions for medical students.

The doctors are saying that, hey, just adding more doctors into the mix isn't going to solve the structural problems that's really underpinning the shortage and it comes down to what they say, or at least two critical issue shoes. One. Korea's got this great national health insurance system. It serves fifty two million citizens. It's one of the best healthcare systems. But Koreans love to see their doctors, and they're seeing

That's in part because healthcare is really accessible and affordable in South Korea. Koreans can visit any medical institution, public or private, and only need to pay a fraction of the cost. The government then reimburses the hospitals and clinics for the treatment. But hospitals say the reimbursement from the government is too low.

So low in fact, that a lot of these hospitals are barely financially stable and they're relying on this very heavy and high turnover to stay in business. And of course that puts a lot of burden back on the doctors, especially these poor young residents who are working crazy eighty work week hours.

In February twenty two, twenty four, nearly thirteen thousand doctors, mostly residents and trainees, went on strike around the country. Some of them have resigned altogether. The strike has been going on for almost a year. The guynecologist she also joined the walkout with her colleagues and has since quit her job at the hospital. She's now working as a dermatologist at a skincare clinic and soul. She said she's happy with that choice now that she can spend more time with her baby.

There are just these fundamental structural problems that the government still isn't addressing, and so you do have doctors leaving critical medical specialties and entering fields that aren't dependent on the healthcare reimbursement system, like dermatology, like plastic surgery.

For things like cosmetic procedures or plastic surgery, such treatments aren't covered by national insurance, so doctors working in these specialties are able to charge and earn a lot more.

The doctors say, as long as you have this current national health insurance system in place with super low reimbursements, you're always going to have a shortage of doctors because nobody's going to want to stay in these critical care specialties that don't pay a whole lot when they can see, oh, they're fellow dermatologists making twice as much as they are.

Even more, the impasse has led to a disruption of essential medical services at hospitals. Major hospitals have had to cut back on surgeries and emergency room operation hours. In some cases, the shortage has had deadly consequences. A report from Dunguok University said some thirty seven hundred patients have died since twenty seventeen because local hospitals didn't have enough

It's hard because in Korea when you walk around, everybody is put together right, And can you imagine if you don't subscribe to that kind of esthetic, If that's not you right, I mean, how out of place you feel and when there are places that are offering six dollars

One checked in with Julie, the women from New Jersey that we heard earlier a month and a half after her procedures.

So how are you doing? You said, a lot of people were noticing made some nice comments about your face and skins.

Well, yeah they did. They said that I'm aging backwards.

That's great.

Well, how do you feel about it?

I don't know that I noticed much until a couple of weeks. And then a couple of weeks later, at some point I looked in the mirror and I was like, Oh, my skin is looking really good.

Are you thinking about making another trip anytime soon?

I would actually do it, like in a year.

Yeah. Are you thinking next time you'll come back with a friend, or you'll come back by yourself, or what are you thinking?

My sister in law seems really interested, So maybe.

This is the big take. Asia from Bloomberg News I'm Rebecca Cheung Wilkins. This episode was produced by Young Young, Naomi Ung, and Jessica Beck. It was mixed by Alex Sagura, sound designed by Jessica, and fact check by Naomi. It was edited by Aaron Edwards and David Rocks. There was additional reporting Guy Sella. Naomi Shavin is our senior producer, Elizabeth Ponso is our senior editor, Nicole Beemsterbor is our executive producer, and Stage Bauman is Bloomberg's head of podcasts.

See you next time.