Contact & consultation

Arranging an assessment

Outpatient appointments are booked through the hospital on the numbers below; international patients can ask for Michael Yu. Bring profile photographs of yourself from earlier years if you have them, and bring anything you know about your bite or any previous dental or orthodontic treatment, because both are part of the assessment.

What a good assessment includes

An assessment of the profile as a whole rather than of the chin alone, including how the forehead, the nose, the lips and the chin relate to one another; an examination of the bone and of how the soft tissue sits over it; and an assessment of the bite and the jaw. Where the bite relationship is not normal, or where the lower jaw is genuinely small, the assessment includes a referral rather than a plan.

Asking about the plan

Ask which finding the proposed operation addresses, why the other was not proposed, and how far the chin is planned to move. Ask what the plan would look like if the deficiency turned out to be proportional rather than skeletal. Ask what could be done if you did not like the result, and how that would be carried out. Ask what happens to sensation in the lower lip and chin, and what is done if it does not return. A surgeon who answers those questions specifically is assessing you rather than presenting to you.

Before you commit

No decision needs to be made at the first appointment, and none needs to be made between the two operations until the examination says which finding is present. Take the plan away, read it against the guides on this site, and come back with questions. Being referred to another specialty for a bite or jaw assessment is a finding rather than a refusal.