A
ghost surgery is a surgery in which the person who performs the operation, the "ghost doctor," is not the surgeon that was hired for and is credited with the operation. The ghost doctor substitutes the hired surgeon while the patient is unconscious from
anesthesia.
Ghost surgeries are "rampant" in the South Korean cosmetic surgery industry. Ghost doctors are often unlicensed and unqualified to perform the operations they are hired for, with some plastic surgeries being performed by dentists, nurses, or salespeople; one former ghost doctor reported that most substitutes were dentists. The Korean Society of Plastic Surgeons estimated that there were about 100,000 victims of ghost surgery in South Korea between 2008 and 2014. About five patients died during ghost surgeries between 2014 and 2022.