Dr. Thomas A. Mustoe MD, FACS

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Get to know Plastic Surgeon Dr. Thomas Mustoe, who serves patients in Chicago, Illinois.

A highly trained plastic surgeon, Dr. Mustoe is the Owner of TLKM Plastic Surgery in Chicago, Illinois. In his many years of practice, treating thousands of patients and training the best minds in plastic surgery, he has earned the respect of patients and physicians alike.

The doctors at TLKM Plastic Surgery have achieved excellent results and have the accolades to prove it. They specialize in advanced techniques that produce natural-looking results with enhanced comfort and reduced recovery time. Both the doctors and their staff want patients to have a great experience from the start of their journey to their end result.

Throughout his academic career, Dr. Mustoe graduated cum laude from Harvard College and Harvard Medical School, and took an extra year as research fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Bernard Fields, working on the genetics of reovirus, where he was awarded the Somas Weiss Award for his work as the best medical student research presentation in 1978 at Harvard.

Thereafter, he completed his internship at Massachusetts General Hospital and his 2nd year residency in surgery at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital. He went on to complete residencies in otolaryngology at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, and plastic surgery at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where he also served as Chief Resident.

Recognized as a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons (FACS), the doctor attained board certification in plastic surgery through the American Board of Plastic Surgery (ABPS). The mission of the ABPS is to promote safe, ethical, efficacious plastic surgery to the public by maintaining high standards for the education, examination, certification, and continuous certification of plastic surgeons as specialists and subspecialists.

To boot, he is board-certified in otolaryngology by the American Board of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery, which is a non-profit corporation that has set the mission of ensuring professional standards with certificates and memberships and has offered training in the fields of head neck surgery to professionals since 1924.

Remaining up to date in his field, Dr. Mustoe is an active member of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, the American Association of Plastic Surgeons, the American Council of Academic Plastic Surgeons, and the Plastic Surgery Research Council. He served as President of the Wound Healing Society and received their Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006. He has also served as Scientific Program Chair for 3 years for the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Plastic Surgery, and currently serves on the Board of Directors of the American Board of Plastic Surgery.

With a passion for teaching, he started his career at Washington University rising to Associate Professor after 4 years, and leaving after 6 years to come to Northwestern University as Professor and Chief of the Division of Plastic Surgery in 1991. He retained that position for 28 years, stepping down in 2017. During his tenure, the clinical volume in plastic surgery at Northwestern University Hospital tripled, and the plastic surgery residency program became one of the most competitive programs in the country, and one of a very few programs that set aside and fund a required year for research. He has also been a Visiting Professor at multiple institutions, lecturing on techniques in facial, breast and abdominal cosmetic surgery, as well as conscious sedation, techniques to optimize scarring, and clinical applications of wound healing research.

Plastic surgery is a surgical specialty involving the restoration, reconstruction, or alteration of the human body. It can be divided into two main categories – reconstructive surgery and cosmetic surgery. A plastic surgeon’s primary responsibility is performing surgical and non-surgical procedures, and they use a variety of reparative and reconstructive techniques to get the job done.

Singled out from other Chicago plastic surgeons, Dr. Mustoe has been named annually to multiple Best Doctors lists both locally and nationally, and has been the recipient of the RealSelf 100 Award, awarded to the Top Social Influencers in Cosmetic Medicine (2015), Chicago Magazine Top Doctors (1998, 2001, 2004, 2006-2015), U.S. News & World Report Top Doctors (2011-2012), Castle Connolly America’s Top Doctors 16 years in a row, and Consumers’ Research Council of America Guide to America’s Top Physicians (2003-2014).

Happily married, his wife Kathryn Stallcup, has a Ph.D. in microbiology from Harvard University, and is a long-time employee of Northwestern University, currently serving as Executive Director of the Chicago Biomedical Consortium. Their son, Anthony, is a graduate of Washington University and has begun work on a Ph.D. in Biophysics at the University of Michigan. Their daughter, Elisabeth, is a junior at Northwestern, majoring in political science.

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