Tongchun Mao (毛彤春)
Deputy Director & Head of Aesthetic Surgery · Vice Chief Physician, Licensed Aesthetic Attending · Lead Physician of This Site
Chin and jaw bone surgery · the direction and magnitude of a segment · planning the cut against the nerve canal and the tooth roots
Dr. Tongchun Mao is an aesthetic surgeon at Chongqing West District Hospital, where he is Deputy Director and Head of Aesthetic Surgery in its Plastic Surgery & Aesthetics Medical Center and the responsible physician for this site. He personally performs more than 700 operations a year, within hospital standards of assessment, anaesthesia and follow-up.
His assessment of a chin starts with direction rather than with size, because the answer decides whether the bone is the right target at all. He looks at the height of the lower third of the face separately from its projection, checks the midline and the tilt of each side, and reads the crease under the lower lip as the feature that decides whether a result will look natural. He examines the bite before proposing anything, and where the teeth meet unevenly he says that the chin is not the first problem to treat. Before planning a cut he reviews where the nerve leaves the jaw and how the roots sit along the intended line, and where those leave too little room he says so and plans a smaller movement rather than a larger one. Where the projection is mild and the height is right, he says that a device reaches the same change with less risk.
Clinical focus
The chin is set last, not first
Where the jaws are also being moved, the chin is positioned after them, because its correct place depends on where they end up. Where orthodontics is involved, the teeth are positioned before the bone is moved. A patient who understands that order is not surprised when the plan for the chin is finalised late, and knows which of the specialists to ask about which step.
