Tongchun Mao (毛彤春)
Deputy Director & Head of Aesthetic Surgery · Vice Chief Physician, Licensed Aesthetic Attending · Lead Physician of This Site
Fat grafting · body contouring and liposuction · revision of contour irregularity
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.
Dr. Mao assesses a transfer in a fixed order, and the order is the argument. He examines the recipient area first, because scarred, previously operated, irradiated or very thin tissue holds a transfer less predictably and is the finding that most often changes the plan. He examines the donor area second, for how much fat is available and for what its own recovery and scar would mean to the patient. He takes the weight history over the past year rather than the weight on the day, and asks directly what a future change is planned. Where the complaint needs lifting rather than filling, or where the expectation is symmetry or a large change, he says so and declines the transfer, which he describes as a common outcome of an assessment in his practice. Where a transfer goes ahead, he plans it as a range, states the uncertainty as part of the plan rather than as a caveat, and tells patients before the operation that the earliest fair judgement is around the third month.
Clinical focus
Two sites, one decision
The donor site is not a footnote. A patient who agrees to a transfer is agreeing to a second area being bruised, held in a garment for a period and left with a permanent scar, and to a possible contour change where the fat was taken. Some patients welcome that; some find afterwards that the donor area bothers them more than the area they came to have treated. That is the part of the consultation Dr. Mao spends the longest on, and it is the reason the donor area appears in the plan rather than in the consent form.
