Asking for good surgeon in Asia

[Jack.]

Hi everyone, I live in Vietnam, where GRS is banned. I'm looking for surgeon for Top Surgery in Asia, starting with Thailand but I can't feel safe with any surgeon that I found. Some names come up regularly but I can't choose any of them. I sent emails to Yanhee, Pai, Dr. Chettawut (all in Thailand) but only Pai had replied. But the reply didn't answer my questions, it only contained some basic information about the costs that I have to pay. Then I searched more about Pai and found out that Pai is not trustable. Then I found Dr. Pichet (also from Thailand). He seems to be a good a trustable one. But, has any of you guys had top surgery in Asia? Please tell me the experiences and the name of your surgeon, this helps me alot!!

Btw, I'm a newbie and this is my first post to this forum. Hello to everyone and thank you very much for any of your replies  .

[SWNID]

I don't have a lot of information but since no one else has replied, I am just sharing whatever I know.
I think Thailand is a great option for you because it is closest and they are very experienced at gender surgeries.
The cheapest place to go is Shanghai, China, but I am not sure if they admit international patients.
There is also a hospital in Taiwan that does a lot of gender surgeries and they do accept international patients, but the process of getting required document is complicated.

[amd]

Jack,

You might also want to try different groups in case members here haven't had direct experience with Asian surgeons.

I just searched on Thailand in the message log for the Yahoo group "FTM surgery information" and found a post from someone who had been to PAI for top surgery and was happy with their results. You can join that group if you sign up for a Yahoo account.

Also, check out transbucket.com. There is at least one person with pictures up who had surgery at the PAI Institute, with Dr. Sutin Khobunsongserm.  There may be more, I don't know the names of the surgeons who work out of that clinic, and you have to search by surgeon.

You could also try the FTM surgery groups on Facebook in case anyone there knows more.

Best of luck!

[aleon515]

You might also look at youtube and see if anyone has been to any of the Asian surgeons. I do think Thailand is it. I doubt if you are going to find it easy getting into China. There is no reason that there won't be surgeons in Thailand who aren't competent. In Thailand there is a long history of openness of trans people in the culture.

--Jay

[Vestyn]

Hi Jack,

I'm one month post-op via Dr. Sutin Khobunsongserm at PAI in Bangkok. I've been waiting to post any kind of review here or at transbucket as my chest has been healing and I get a more solid feel for how it's going to look, but I'm very satisfied with the way things are looking so far. The only bump has been the incisions - if you check out the guy on transbucket, you'll notice that Dr. Sutin uses much longer lateral incisions than most surgeons. This was actually one of the reasons why I chose him - I liked the look of the long incisions more than the little moon-cup scars most guys end up with - but I also live in Southeast Asia and in the ensuing month it has been really difficult to keep them clean in this dust and grime. My local GP put me on a 2x/day cleaning routine that took an hour each session to try to control the inflammation and ward off infection.

So overall, a postive impression of Dr. Sutin but dealing with PAI - and their obtuse "consultant" who tried to make a hefty commission off of me, wouldn't allow me to communicate with Dr. Sutin directly, and then disappeared - was less-than-favorable. PAI is a business, straight-up. But as long as you go in informed about your options and firmly insist on sticking to the terms of your surgical package, it's worth the hassle, IMO.

Feel free to email me if you want to take this convo private.