Surgeon likes to be part of the ‘before’ and ‘after’

“I enjoy seeing my ‘after’ patients,” says T. William Evans, associate professor of oral and maxillofacial surgery. “It makes me very proud to be able to make someone look better and younger.” Photo: Joshua Clark

T. William Evans does between 300 and 400 facial aesthetic surgery procedures every year.

“Procedures, not patients — most patients have more than one,” he says, for example, an endoscopic browlift, a facelift, a necklift and a chin implant.

“I enjoy seeing my ‘after’ patients,” said Evans, associate professor of oral and maxillofacial surgery. “It makes me very proud to be able to make someone look better and younger.”

His patients range from age 6 to about 80. Many of the youngest come to Evans for an otoplasty. Which is? Grinning, he illustrates by grabbing each ear between thumb and forefinger and pulling. In other words, the ears stick out. Twenty percent of his patients are men, and 20 percent are from California.

“Some are actors and actresses,” he said. “Most are patients who previously had facial aesthetic surgery in California and are unhappy with the results.”

Evans has limited his practice to facial aesthetic surgery since 1987. He says he was the first surgeon in the United States to perform a bilateral sagittal osteotomy of the mandible, and possibly the first to perform a total maxillary osteotomy to shorten a long face.

In 1997 he was among 26 oral and maxillofacial surgeons accepted into the fellowship of the American College of Surgeons since its inception in 1913.

Most of Evans’ career has been spent in Columbus, Ohio. He joined the UIC faculty in 2012 and drives here twice a month, arriving Wednesday and returning Saturday. But he’s getting busier at UIC and foresees the possibility of being here full time.

He came to UIC because “I love to teach,” he said, and he’s also on the faculty at Ohio State University and the University of Michigan.

Evans is writing a textbook, Maxillofacial and Facial Aesthetic Surgery, but he lectures internationally “and that has kind of taken away from the book,” he said. “I probably will put it together some day.”

He grew up in Youngstown, Ohio. His father was a football and track coach at Massillon (Ohio) High School and the University of Akron, and Evans won all-city and all-state honors in both sports in high school.

He graduated from the College of Wooster, in Ohio, with honors in chemistry, then attended dental school at Ohio State, earning his degree summa cum laude. Next came a residency in oral and maxillofacial surgery at Ohio State University Hospital, followed by an M.D. at Ohio State. He has a Phi Beta Kappa key.

Evans founded Emergency Medical Associates Inc., one of the first organized private emergency physician groups in the United States. He was its president for 25 years and practiced emergency medicine concurrent with his surgery practice for 10 years. He was founding president of the Ohio chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians.

He met his wife, Ruth, in surgery at Ohio State University Hospital when she was an operating room nurse and he was a resident in anesthesia. She became his surgical instrument nurse and continued in that capacity until 1998.

Their son, Erik, served a one-year facial aesthetic surgery fellowship and is currently a full-time academic surgeon at the University of Cincinnati. Their daughter, Erin Hawkins, is her father’s office manager in Columbus and handles his appointments at UIC.

Evans is a private pilot with 2,500 hours of flying. He used to breed, raise and race horses. “At one time I had 74 thoroughbreds,” he said. “I had a farm and we raced all over the country.

“It took me 10 years to get out of the business. I wanted to simplify my life; it took a lot of my time.”

He was once an avid skier who plied slopes for 30 days a year all over the world. But seven years ago he had a hip replaced, and the second hip came two years later.

“I was a very aggressive skier,” Evans said. “I couldn’t casually ski, so I gave it up.”