How Long Does Cataract Surgery Take? 15–20 Minutes Per Eye

How long does cataract surgery take, when you're the one booking flights for your father and sitting with him in the waiting room? The operation itself takes about 15–20 minutes per eye. What stretches the trip is everything around it: the preparation on the day, the check-up afterward, and whether the second eye is done now or later.

Hello, I'm Dr. Kim Sun-young, Medical Director at Healing Eye Clinic in Gangnam; my specialty covers cornea, glaucoma and cataract. Here one surgeon does the exam, the cataract surgery and the aftercare, so the doctor your father sees at his check-up is the one who operated. A medical interpreter for English is provided at no extra charge, and international patients pay the same price as Korean patients.

For your calendar, the operation fits inside a morning, most of the healing happens after you've flown home, and the number of days in Seoul is set by the check-ups and by how many eyes are done on this trip.

If your father has a recent report from his eye doctor at home, send a photo of it on WhatsApp with the dates you can both travel, and ask whether one eye or both is realistic in that window. The consultation on WhatsApp is free.

Fifteen minutes in the operating room, most of a day at the clinic

The 15–20 minutes is the time spent working on the eye: the clouded natural lens is removed through a small opening and a clear intraocular lens goes in its place. The visit around it is longer.

The American Academy of Ophthalmology explains that the eye is numbed with drops or an injection around the eye, that some people are given medicine to help them relax, and that the patient stays awake. Afterward comes about 15 to 30 minutes in a recovery area, then home. There is no overnight hospital stay.

Then the part you plan for as his companion. The NEI asks patients to bring a friend or family member on surgery day, because they can't drive afterward. In Seoul that simply means you, a taxi and a quiet evening. Our clinic is a minute's walk from Sinnonhyeon Station, and our partner hotel is O'Cloud Hotel in Seocho-gu.

The detailed exam is its own block of time. Whether the exam and the surgery can fall on the same day or need separate days is something to confirm when you book, so leave room for both.

Why does the lens choice add time before surgery?

Because the lens is chosen before the operation, and that conversation can take longer than the surgery itself. With a premium intraocular lens, cataract surgery can also correct presbyopia and astigmatism in one step, which matters when your father travels once and would like fewer reading glasses afterward.

Risks and side effects to know

The questions I want answered are about his days, not a lens catalogue. Does he still drive at night? Does he read for hours, or mostly watch television? How much would halos around headlights bother him? Multifocal lenses give near vision at some cost to night clarity for some people, and that trade suits some lives and not others.

Not pushing more than you need is a principle I hold to, so if a monofocal lens fits his life, that is what I'll recommend. Our Korean main site has a page on premium intraocular lenses if you'd like to see the options laid out in Korean. For the wider picture of the trip, I've written a Seoul surgeon's guide to cataract surgery in Korea.

How long does cataract surgery take to heal?

Days for comfort, weeks for the final result. The NEI says the eye may feel itchy, uncomfortable and sensitive to light and touch at first, and should feel better after one or two days. The AAO notes that most people see better within a few days, with full healing taking about 4–6 weeks, and the NEI says most people are completely healed 8 weeks after surgery. Our own materials describe daily life returning within days, with vision settling gradually.

One thing families rarely expect: after the first eye, his old glasses will be wrong for that side. The operated eye no longer needs the strong lens it used to, so the old pair can feel worse than going without. Some people manage with the old pair for distance on one side for a few weeks, others with cheap readers; ask at the check-up which makes sense for him before buying anything new.

One eye or both on this trip?

The NEI describes surgery on each eye at a separate time, usually about a month apart. For a family travelling from abroad, that rhythm means two trips, one long stay, or one eye now and a decision on the other later. Some surgeons operate the second eye sooner when the first has healed well, and that is a medical judgment about each eye, made with the surgeon after the exam.

Say your father is 71, his right eye has a dense cataract that has stopped him driving at night, his left eye is mildly affected, and you have ten days of leave. I would look first at whether the left eye needs surgery at all yet. If it doesn't, one eye on this trip, with time for the check-ups, is often the plan that fits, and the left can wait until it actually changes his life. If both are advanced, the conversation turns to spacing and to how long you can stay.

For the stay itself, see how long to stay in Korea for cataract surgery, and for the decision in more depth, cataract surgery in Seoul when you're weighing one eye or both.

When you know how many days you can stay, write them on WhatsApp along with which eye bothers him more, and ask what the realistic options are for that length of stay.

Days in Seoul around the clinic's hours

We're open Monday to Thursday 10:00–18:30, Friday until 21:00, and Saturday 10:00–14:00, with lunch from 13:00 to 14:00, and closed on Sundays and public holidays. The Friday evening hours help if you land that afternoon and want to get a first visit in before the weekend.

The Sunday closure matters most. Since the first check-up usually falls on the day after surgery, a Saturday operation would push that visit to a day we're closed, so plan surgery earlier in the week. Our address is 470 Gangnam-daero, 10–11F, Gangnam-gu, and the hours and messenger buttons are also on Healing Eye Clinic's English homepage.

As for the flight home, the cabin itself is rarely the worry after uncomplicated cataract surgery. Leaving before the check-ups your surgeon wants is, so book the return only once that schedule is clear.

What if something feels wrong once he's home?

The NEI's list of reasons to call an eye doctor right away after cataract surgery is short and worth printing: vision loss, pain that medication doesn't relieve, very red eyes, and floaters. Mild itch or light sensitivity in the first days is expected; those four are not.

Before you fly to Seoul, book an appointment with his eye doctor at home for the week after you return, and bring every record from the surgery to it. That one booking turns a scary week into a routine visit. On our side, the clinic runs a lifetime surgery program with lifelong check-ups and responsibility after surgery, and we're registered with Korea's Ministry of Health and Welfare as a medical institution for international patients.

Some eyes are better off waiting: an active infection or inflammation in or around the eye usually needs to settle first, and poorly controlled diabetes or blood pressure is often addressed before surgery. Conditions such as glaucoma or macular disease don't always rule surgery out, but they can limit how much the new lens helps, and recovery varies from one person to the next. Months or years later, some people notice vision clouding again because the capsule behind the lens thickens; it is a common, treatable change, done with a short laser procedure.

Presbyopia and Cataract Surgery Together: Fixing Two Problems in One Operation go further into what usually comes next.

What to send before booking his flight

On exam day, the first thing I look at is how dense the cataract is in each eye, and then whether anything behind the lens, at the retina or the optic nerve, will limit what a new lens can give him. That decides more about the plan than the operation's 15–20 minutes.

So send a photo of his home eye report and his current glasses prescription on WhatsApp, and ask the one question that matters for your family: does anything in this report, such as a glaucoma note, change how long we should plan to stay? The consultation on WhatsApp is free, and a single photo of the report is enough to begin.