Dr. Tang Ho Honored for 15 Years of Service to UTHealth Houston
Tang Ho, MD, chief of facial plastic and reconstructive surgery and director of the facial plastic and reconstructive surgery fellowship in the Department of Otorhinolaryngology at McGovern Medical School, was recognized for 15 years of service to UTHealth Houston in the 2024-2025 academic year. An associate professor in the department, Dr. Ho is dual board certified by the American Board of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery and the American Board of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery. He leads the Texas Center for Facial Plastic Surgery, a core division of the department.
Dr. Ho received his undergraduate degree in biomedical engineering at Johns Hopkins University in 1998 and spent the following year as a United States Fulbright Scholar to the United Kingdom, where he received his master’s degree in sociology at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.
“After my undergraduate experience, I felt that I wanted to have more of a people connection than you traditionally get in engineering,” he says. “Medicine is one of the few professions in which you have the opportunity to have meaningful relationships with people from all walks of life.”
In 1999, he returned to the U.S. from Scotland and entered the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Following graduation, he completed internship training in general surgery and residency training in otolaryngology-head and neck surgery at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. He returned to the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in 2008 for fellowship training in facial plastic and reconstructive surgery.
“I get great satisfaction from seeing the immediate visible improvement people have after aesthetic or reconstructive surgery, which helps them live their lives with more confidence,” Dr. Ho says. “On the aesthetic side, we help patients achieve the visible enhancements they’re looking for, which is very rewarding. The fact that we also help restore a sense of normalcy and a return to social life after trauma or cancer is personally gratifying. I’ve had the opportunity to know many of my patients and their families quite well.”
There is no typical day for Dr. Ho and his team, which now includes assistant professor W. Katherine Kao, MD; an aesthetic nurse; and a patient coordinator. He might spend the morning reconstructing the face of a gunshot wound survivor and the afternoon completing a deep-plane face and neck lift with blepharoplasty. He says he enjoys the variety.
In late 2019, the Texas Center for Facial Plastic Surgery moved to a new stand-alone office space on the 20th floor of the Memorial Hermann Medical Plaza in the Texas Medical Center. The center offers the full spectrum of facial cosmetic and reconstructive services, including facelift, brow lift and thread lift; reanimation procedures for patients with facial paralysis; reconstruction of skin cancer defects; and complex microvascular facial reconstruction. Providers at the center also offer aesthetician services that include skin care, laser resurfacing, microneedling for facial rejuvenation, injectable Botox®, and fillers.
In 2021, Dr. Ho welcomed the first of three surgeons who have trained through the department’s facial plastic and reconstructive surgery fellowship program. This academic year’s fellow is Rakan Saadoun, MD, who completed residency training at University Medical Centre Mannheim in Germany.
“Dr. Martin Citardi has spent the past 17 years building the Department of Otorhinolaryngology from the ground up by recruiting a diverse and excellent team representing all facets of our specialty,” says Dr. Ho, whose vision for the future includes expanding facial plastic and reconstructive surgery services to a satellite location in the community. “The great thing about our department is our sense of camaraderie. We work very well together.”