Tongchun Mao (毛彤春)
Deputy Director & Head of Aesthetic Surgery · Vice Chief Physician, Licensed Aesthetic Attending · Lead Physician of This Site
Body contouring surgery · abdominoplasty scope and its limits · the assessment that decides between the two operations
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 starts by locating the problem rather than by sizing the operation. He establishes whether the looseness is confined to the skin below the navel, how much of the complaint is skin and how much is fat, and where the muscle separation actually runs, because the umbilicus is what divides the two operations. Where the finding crosses that line, he says the smaller operation will leave it exactly as it is and offers the plan that reaches it. Where weight is still changing or a further pregnancy is planned, he asks the patient to come back rather than to proceed. He also tells every patient considering a mini what the recovery actually costs in weeks, because the word makes it sound shorter than it is.
Clinical focus
The word describes a boundary, not a degree
A mini is not a gentler version of the same operation. It is a different operation with a boundary, and the boundary falls at the navel. Everything below it is treated; everything above it, including the muscle, is left exactly as it was. A patient who understands that before the operation judges the result fairly. One who learns it afterwards is disappointed by an operation that did precisely what it was designed to do.
