Health tourism is often mentioned in the media, most commonly without any analysis or evaluation, but it is always emphasized that Serbia is in position to offer the same. Instead of analysis, I will tell you what we do, when foreign patients make appointment and come to us for aesthetic surgery.

One of more important moments in choosing Serbia as the place for aesthetic surgery is the price, which is several times lower comparing to Western European countries, and also significantly lower comparing to countries in the region, while results of surgeries are identical to those performed in mentioned countries. Due to these reasons, most frequent guests in my practice are from Austria, Switzerland, Slovenia, but also from USA, Australia, Germany and Zambia. Quality of accommodation certainly represents important factor, but since patients usually only sleep over in the hospital it is not of crucial importance.

Before deciding on a surgeon and clinic you must carefully search through the internet and chose “candidates”. Make sure they specialized in plastic surgery and possess license issued by medical chamber and that clinic is properly registered. Read what other patients said about chosen surgeon or clinic.

If the patient does not speak Serbian there are no difficulties because entire team speaks English, and it also happened once in a while that I surprised a patient with my knowledge of Slovenian or Norwegian language. When German language is in question we hire translator, if necessary. Finding one’s way in foreign language also does not represent much of a problem in Belgrade, because there is always someone around who speaks English and it is enough to show the address to taxi drivers and they will drive you to desired location.

It is very common in Serbia that you schedule and consider details of your surgery directly with a surgeon instead in a clinic. I do not prefer medical nurse or secretary scheduling my surgeries, but I rather get to know a patient, before meeting her/him and therefore I advise them to always address to me personally- via e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, SMS/MMS. I try my best to always be available for all questions and to answer each of them, whether they are of technical, theoretical nature or regarding accommodation and price, during the same day.

Persons accompanying patients may choose from several types of accommodation, usually via web site Booking.com, at quite affordable prices. For most frequently performed surgeries (breast enlargement, nose correction, liposuction, abdominoplasty, face-lifting) it is enough to plan 5-7 days stay, although most patients go home on the second or third day after the surgery. In order to make time pass faster, we usually recommend sightseeing of the city and surrounding, but there is a bigger interest for shopping and night life, and it happened one time that patients from Slovenia postponed their surgeries in order to party on river clubs.