Dr. Patronella Featured in Top Doctor Magazine

Posted March 07, 2025 in Uncategorized

B Y  S H E R R I   R O B E R T S

Plastic surgeon Dr. Chris Patronella is fond of sharing a quote of which his father often reminded him throughout his life, “Success is never certain. Failure is never final.” It’s never been far from his mind, compelling him to pursue excellence in every aspect of his profession. For more than three decades, he’s developed and refined techniques to advance plastic surgery safety and create more attractive, authentic-looking results.

Dr. Patronella employs progressive tension sutures for all body contouring and lift procedures, including tummy tuck surgery, an advanced technique that improves wound healing while eliminating the need for uncomfortable drains. In “Expanding the Progressive Tension Suture Concept: A Study of its Utility in Body Contouring Procedures,” published in the Aesthetic Surgery Journal in 2021, Dr. Patronella documented the successful use of this technique he performed in 441 patients over a three-year period. Dr. Patronella further adapted progressive tension sutures in tummy tuck surgery, wielding them as a tool to sculpt the soft muscular definition visible on a beautiful, fit abdomen. His approach was published in the Aesthetic Surgery Journal: “Redefining Abdominal Anatomy: 10 Key Elements for Restoring Form in Abdominoplasty,” which was designated the “Featured Operative Technique” in its Nov./Dec. 2015 issue.

Dr. Patronella has been invited to present his body contouring expertise at plastic surgery conferences in the United States and around the globe in countries including Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Panama, Colombia, and most recently, Tokyo, Japan. In addition to these speaking engagements, Dr. Patronella shares his knowledge through a role he finds particularly rewarding as a clinical professor of plastic surgery at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, educating young plastic surgeons from three plastic surgery residency programs from Houston and Galveston. He also teaches and mentors fellows who rotate yearly through his group’s aesthetic fellowship program in Houston. It’s a responsibility he fulfills with enthusiasm and gratitude in memory of his own mentors who were instrumental in equipping him with the skills he needed to build a successful career.

Dr. Patronella’s intensely meticulous approach to surgery translates to the elegant results which have led him to be repeatedly named “One of America’s Best Plastic Surgeons” in Newsweek year after year. One of the most acclaimed examples of this is the aforementioned drainless True Form Tummy Tuck® he developed over 20 years ago with the goal to replicate the appearance of an attractive, toned abdomen—a mission ignited by his disappointment with the uniformly flat “surgical” appearance that traditional tummy tuck techniques typically yielded. With this, he incorporates a six-step belly button method to fashion what is widely considered the ideal navel aesthetic: one that is natural and vertically-oriented with a deep inward contour.

Dr. Patronella notes, “ Women make decisions about tummy tuck surgery based upon the appearance of the belly button. If they see a friend who has an unattractive, surgical-appearing belly button after having a tummy tuck, they’re not going to that plastic surgeon.”

Dr. Patronella’s love of creating beautiful results that positively transform his patients’ lives both physically and psychologically has led to a growing specialty for him: corrective cosmetic plastic surgery procedures to revise results for individuals who are dissatisfied with the outcomes they received from previous cosmetic plastic surgery done elsewhere.

He said, “Revision cases are difficult, but that makes success all the more rewarding, particularly when you’re taking care of a patient who is terribly self-conscious about the results of a poorly performed procedure or a complication that occurred from previous surgery. I feel blessed to have the skill set and experience to make it right. I look forward to those cases because I’m confident I can help. That’s the ultimate reward for me.”

Revision breast implant procedures are burgeoning due to more women opting to downsize or remove their breast implants in exchange for a smaller, perkier physique which better fits their active lifestyle and comfort preferences. In this surgical niche, Dr. Patronella is attentive to both the aesthetic details which create a beautiful, shapely breast appearance as well as the structural elements which influence the longevity of results. Depending upon a woman’s unique needs and goals, he may exchange or remove implants completely, repair the implant pocket, perform a breast lift, and improve breast crease definition—factors which impact the position and shape of the breasts.

In some patients, Dr. Patronella incorporates mesh, which creates a type of “internal bra” in which the body’s own collagen grows in and out of the weave of the dissolvable mesh. After the mesh has dissolved, this collagen network supports the weight of large breasts or implants and enhances the duration of the breasts’ elevated position following breast lift surgery.

This commitment to excellence coupled with his personable, straightforward demeanor has earned Dr. Patronella the trust of thousands of patients across the globe. He says: “I consider the trust of my patients a privilege and a responsibility that I respect.”

He notes, “It’s my intention to understand my patients’ concerns and goals and then educate them about the procedure(s) that will best achieve the results they seek and provide them with a balanced, attractive appearance, even if this differs from the surgery in which they initially expressed interest. I’m not going to try and sell a procedure that I do not think is going to be effective. A common example would be a woman who consults with me after having children, uncomfortable with remaining loose tummy skin and a pooch of diet-resistant fat, who requests liposuction of her abdomen. I’d rather not do any procedure at all than to perform a less effective procedure, such as liposuction on that patient, which will not have the desired effect and will potentially be less attractive than the preexisting condition.”

It’s an equilibrium he navigates with ease and honesty in consultations with patients: optimism for the physical transformation he envisions, tempered by a realistic understanding of limitations. When he was a young medical resident, Dr. Patronella was fascinated by the creativity required to excel in plastic surgery. His passion for the field has only grown stronger as he looks forward to the next 10 years. An ever-expanding list of accolades are a testament to the achievements he’s accomplished. Yet his excitement to discover new and better ways to perfect his craft remains a mission which drives him. Because success is never certain, and failure is never final.