About TAE Plastic Surgery Clinic

TAE Plastic Surgery Clinic is a single-doctor plastic surgery and laser clinic in Haeundae, Busan, founded in 2005 by Dr. Kim Ki-tae, its only surgeon.

About TAE Plastic Surgery Clinic: A Complex Aesthetic Surgery Space in Haeundae, Busan

Medically reviewed by Dr. Kim Ki-tae, MD — Board-Certified Specialist in Plastic Surgery, Korean Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons; Director and founder, TAE Plastic Surgery Clinic
TAE Plastic Surgery Clinic, Haeundae-gu, Busan

TAE Plastic Surgery Clinic is a plastic surgery and aesthetic practice on the fourth floor of the Gunam Building in Haeundae-gu, Busan, South Korea. It was founded in 2005 by Dr. Kim Ki-tae, who is still the only doctor working there. This page sets out who runs the clinic, what it is registered and certified to do, how a consultation works for someone travelling from the United States, and where each claim comes from. Everything below is drawn from the clinic's own documentation. Where the clinic has not published something, this page says so rather than filling the space.

Our Story & Mission

Dr. Kim Ki-tae opened the clinic in Haeundae in 2005, and a Korean corporate registry listing gives the opening month as November of that year. He has been its sole doctor from the first year to the present, so the history of the practice and the working career of one surgeon are the same twenty-year record. The clinic describes itself as having protected Haeundae for over twenty years.

The mission is easier to read in the clinic's own words than in a summary. Its published philosophy statement is titled "A complex aesthetic surgery space of an entirely new concept — TAE Plastic Surgery", and it opens by setting aside a narrower model: "We did not set out to be an ordinary plastic surgery practice." The closing line of that statement is the mission proper: "We work to provide the safest and most satisfying medical care on the basis of extensive surgical experience, advanced laser equipment and academically verified medical know-how."

TAE Plastic Surgery Clinic describes itself as a complex aesthetic surgery space, in which surgery is connected to non-surgical treatment and to advanced lasers, and stem cell and anti-ageing care are practised alongside them rather than kept apart.

What that means on the ground is breadth held on one site rather than split across referrals. The clinic lists thirty-one named services in eight categories, running from eye surgery and breast surgery through body contouring and liposuction, facial lifting and anti-aging work, lasers, injectables, scar and tattoo treatment, and stem cell aesthetics. The clinic states that in more than twenty years at one place it has been trusted by local residents and by patients from Korea and abroad.

Our Philosophy and Approach to Care

The clinic's stated approach is to assess skin condition and the underlying tissue structure together, because the two determine what any single treatment can realistically achieve. That is why the categories on this site are organised around a decision instead of a product. A heavier lower face, a hollow under-eye or loose skin after weight loss can be a skin-quality problem, a structural problem, or both at once, and the honest answer changes with the finding rather than with the treatment being asked for.

Dr. Kim Ki-tae has put the priority in one line: "In aesthetic medicine, the process of diagnosis is very important." He has also published his position on device-based treatment, which is the larger share of what the clinic does by count: "Even if a treatment is safe and simple, patients differ in skin condition, fat layer thickness, age and how far ageing has progressed — so to get a satisfying result you should have a full consultation with an experienced plastic surgery specialist before being treated."

Two consequences follow, and both matter when you are comparing clinics from another country. The first is that surgical and non-surgical routes are weighed against each other in the same consultation, because they sit in the same practice rather than in competing departments. The second is structural rather than stylistic.

TAE Plastic Surgery Clinic is a single-doctor clinic, so the surgeon who assesses you is the surgeon who treats you.

Medical Leadership and Physician Credentials

Dr. Kim Ki-tae holds the Board-Certified Specialist designation in Plastic Surgery issued by the Korean Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons. He graduated from Inje University College of Medicine and trained as a Clinical Fellow in the Department of Plastic Surgery at Pusan National University from March 2003 to February 2004. He founded TAE Plastic Surgery Clinic in 2005 and has practised there ever since.

His stated title is director and founder of the clinic, and his listed core areas are laser plastic surgery and energy-based aesthetic treatment, stem cell and regenerative anti-aging medicine, liposuction and body contouring, fat grafting, lifting procedures, breast surgery and Renuvion tightening.

He chairs the Academic Committee of the Laser Plastic Surgery Research Group at the Korean Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons, sits on that society's Academic Committee, serves on the Legislation Committee of the Korean Association of Plastic Surgeons, and is General Affairs Director of the Busan Medical Association. He is also recorded as a director of the Southeastern Anti-Aging Medicine Society, in his Busan Ilbo column byline of 28 October 2024.

He is a full member of the American Society for Laser Medicine and Surgery, an international member of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, and a full member of the International Confederation for Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgery.

Dr. Kim Ki-tae was recognised by Candela, the manufacturer of Profound, as a global key doctor, and filmed a training video for Profound users worldwide. That recognition and the workshop described below are the clinic's documented evidence of a teaching role, and this page rests the claim on those instances rather than on a general statement. One documented public lecture is the 266th Buil Women's University session at the Busan Ilbo small hall on 24 September 2024, given under the title "Understanding Beauty: Talking About Aesthetic Plastic Surgery". His full profile is on the doctor page.

Meet Our Medical Team

This section has one entry, and that is the accurate description of the clinic rather than an omission. Dr. Kim Ki-tae is the founder, the director and the only doctor who practises at TAE Plastic Surgery Clinic. There is no associate surgeon, no rotating panel and no separate consulting physician who passes you to an operator later.

Four techniques are named in the clinic's own materials as his:

• An Asian-skin protocol for Profound, developed because the manufacturer's standard protocol is designed for Western skin, and stated by the clinic to reduce swelling and to let lifting results be confirmed quickly. See NP Profound.
• Transconjunctival under-eye surgery that combines fat removal with grafting of finely processed superficial-layer fat cells, for a patient who has bulging and hollowing at the same time. See under-eye fat correction.
• TAE-SFCT, a protocol carrying the clinic's own name, recorded on its service list as a method used within both scar treatment and tattoo removal.
• Prejuvenation as a treatment concept, which he lectured on at the Sciton workshop the clinic hosted.

His consultation availability is the clinic's opening hours, and he sees patients himself in that window. The clinic has not published a referral policy or a written statement of the cases he declines, so this page describes neither. If your case is complex or has been operated on before, ask that question directly at consultation.

Facility, Technology and Safety Standards

The clinic has operated at the same address in Haeundae, Busan since 2005. That continuity is the most concrete safety-relevant fact available about the premises: the same doctor, the same address and the same registered business for two decades.

The clinic states that it holds a wide range of premium laser and energy-based devices beyond the level of a general dermatology practice. The device platforms named on its own service list include NP Profound, HALO laser, Renuvion tightening, XERF, EMFACE, ELSA ultrasound fat reduction and TargetCool.

One event places those rooms in front of outside professionals. The clinic hosted the Sciton Innovations Workshop live seminar at its own premises on 26 August, attended by around 50 practitioners including a delegation from Taiwan, with Dr. Patrick Bitter, the developer of BBL HERO, as special guest.

Where a page on this site quotes the clinic's scale, it quotes the same two figures. The clinic reports approximately 240 surgical procedures and approximately 3,600 non-surgical treatments a year; these are clinic-wide totals across everything it offers, not figures for this procedure.

Three limits are worth stating in the same breath. The clinic publishes no complication rate, no revision rate and no satisfaction score, and none is claimed here. It has published no regulatory clearance documentation for the United States market, so no clearance or approval claim is made for any device named above. Care is delivered under Korean medical licensure and Korean regulation, not under United States licensure, which is a difference worth understanding before you travel for any cosmetic procedure (NHS).