DR. WORLDWIDE GETS SOCIAL
DR. WORLDWIDE GET TO KNOW HIM
Frank Agullo, MD, FACS — known globally as Dr. WorldWide — is a double board-certified plastic surgeon in El Paso, Texas. He is a Clinical Associate Professor of Plastic Surgery at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center and Affiliate Professor at the University of Texas at El Paso. Specializing in preservation-based aesthetic surgery and the Deep Plane Facelift, he has been named a Castle Connolly Top Doctor for thirteen consecutive years and has a global social following of over 3.5 million across Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat. He is the founder of Southwest Plastic Surgery and Plastic Surgery Studios.
Meet Dr.WWDR. WORLDWIDE GET TO KNOW HIM
Frank Agullo, MD, FACS is the plastic surgeon the world watches. Known globally as Dr. WorldWide, he has built one of the largest followings of any surgeon on the planet (over 3.5 million on Instagram @RealDrWorldWide) by pulling back the curtain on plastic surgery and showing what extraordinary results actually look like. Celebrities, influencers, and patients from across the United States and around the world make the trip to El Paso, Texas, because when you have seen the work up close, there is nowhere else to go. More than 80% of his patients travel from outside El Paso. The practice handles every detail of their journey.
Dr. Agullo is double board-certified, Mayo Clinic fellowship-trained, and a Clinical Associate Professor of Plastic Surgery at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. But credentials only tell part of the story. What sets him apart is a philosophy built on preservation: enhancing, restoring, and elevating what is already there rather than changing who you are. Not cookie cutter. Every plan is molded around the individual patient's desires, their anatomy, their life.
That philosophy drives every decision in the operating room. His Motiva Preserve breast augmentations deliver results that feel as natural as they look. His deep plane and endoscopic deep plane facelifts turn back time without announcing themselves. His Supercharged BBL has been refined, published, and presented on international stages. And his ability to combine face and body procedures in a single operative session is a capability few surgeons in the world can offer safely at his level.
The same philosophy applies outside the OR. Forget synthetic fillers. Dr. Agullo restores volume with regenerative grafts including Alloclae, Lipoderma, exosomes, and platelet-derived growth factors. Recovery is treated as part of the result: lymphatic massages, scar management, and Elixir MD LED light therapy ensure that what happens after surgery is as intentional as what happens during it.
Castle Connolly Top Doctor for eleven consecutive years. Texas Super Doctors Hall of Fame. Best Plastic Surgeon in El Paso for thirteen consecutive years. Aesthetic Everything Top Plastic Surgeon 2026. Founding Vice President and President of the World Association of Gluteal Surgeons, where he helped write the global safety standards for gluteal surgery.
The results are daily. The standard is uncompromising. The philosophy is simple: #MakeItHappen. #HappyIsBeautiful. #StayBeautiful.
#PlasticSurgeryIsMyPassion
GLAMOUR SHOTS
Plastic Surgery is a very personal choice and a unique experience for every individual who chooses to undergo a change, be it a discreet or major surgery. The one thing in common for my patients though is that they experience an inner transformation which ultimately shines through as confidence in themselves. Confident is Beautiful!
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- Posted on: August 26th 2026
- Category: Body, Editorial
Most tummy tucks stitch one midline seam. The triple plication adds both obliques, building an internal corset that flattens the abdomen and cuts the waist.
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- Posted on: August 26th 2026
- Category: Body, Editorial
Go pick up any waist trainer in any store and look at it for a second. Count the seams. There are always several, and there is a reason: you cannot cinch a cylinder from one line.
Now here is the strange part. Most tummy tucks, performed by most surgeons, are built on exactly one seam.
I do three. I have been doing three for more than seventeen years, and I remain one of the few surgeons who will. This is the triple plication, the internal corset, and it deserves a proper explanation.
What the One Seam Does
In a traditional tummy tuck, most surgeons will perform a plication of the rectus fascia. Women undergo changes during pregnancy or with weight changes: when the abdomen is fuller, the fascia is stretched, and unlike the muscles, the fascia does not contract back. Exercise strengthens the muscle, but the fascia stays loose, and there’s still an abdominal bulge, or a separation in the rectus called rectus diastasis. I wrote a whole piece on this, the sit up lie, because no amount of core work tightens fascia.
So in a standard tummy tuck, surgeons repair the midline of the rectus fascia to correct the diastasis. This flattens the abdomen and brings in the waistline somewhat. One seam. The front dimension only.
What the Three Seams Do
I like to perform a triple plication. It includes the plication of the rectus muscles down the midline, from the sternum all the way down to the pubis. But then I also plicate the oblique muscles laterally to the lateral rectus fascia, on both sides, which brings in the obliques just like a waist trainer and creates an internal corset.
This significantly reduces the waistline at the same time as it flattens the anterior abdomen. Instead of keeping things in one dimension, just fixing the front, we’re also bringing in the sides. A more wholesome body contouring, front and flanks in the same operation.
Essentially, most surgeons are making a waist trainer with one seam. I use three.
I Did Not Invent This, and That Is the Point
The triple plication is something I have published on, but I can’t take credit for inventing it. The Brazilian plastic surgeons described it many years ago. Somehow, a lot of plastic surgeons never implemented it into their procedures.
My published article covered using a triple plication during a mini tummy tuck, which is possible through a small incision, something patients are always surprised to hear. Seventeen years of doing it has made it a reflex: almost every female patient in my practice gets the triple plication, because a flatter abdomen with a smaller waist is exactly what they came for.
Who does not get it: most male patients, because we don’t want to create a waistline on a man. Who does: male-to-female patients who desire a more feminine figure.
The Waistline Stack
The triple plication rarely works alone. All my tummy tucks include liposuction, especially of the anterior abdomen, waistline, and lower back, and many patients add the upper back and lateral chest. I often combine that with Renuvion J-Plasma for skin tightening.
And for patients chasing the maximum, the internal corset combines with rib repositioning, the procedure marketed as RibX or RibXcar, to bring the waistline in even further. Corset inside, ribs repositioned, fat contoured. That is the whole stack, and I covered the rib half of it in its own article.
What It Costs You in Recovery: Almost Nothing
Here is the honest math on adding two more plication lines. The procedure may increase operating time by fifteen or twenty minutes. It doesn’t change how long drains stay in. It doesn’t change the recovery: two weeks to normal activity, six weeks to running, jumping, and heavy lifting.
Patients do feel a tighter abdomen after surgery. I use Exparel injected into what we call a TAP block, which numbs the area for three days, and I’m happy to say that fifty percent of my patients experience no pain whatsoever. Everybody is different, but it makes the recovery so much easier.
Fifteen extra minutes on the table for a permanently cinched waist. I have never had a patient hear that trade and decline.
Why It Matters
The best thing about this technique is that it creates a much more defined waistline and a flatter abdomen, and that’s what patients want after losing weight or having babies. The one-seam version flattens. The three-seam version sculpts.
I trained at the Mayo Clinic, I teach at Texas Tech, and I have published on this technique. If your surgeon has not heard of the triple plication, the Brazilians and I would both like a word.
Ready to Talk?
If you want the internal corset version of a tummy tuck rather than the single seam, let’s plan it. Call (915) 590-7900, text 1-866-814-0038, or book online. #StayBeautiful
@RealDrWorldWide on Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat, @Agullo on X, or @AgulloPlasticSurgery on Facebook.
Companion reads: the clinical explainer on agulloplasticsurgery.com, and the practice overview at swplasticsurgery.com.
- Posted on: August 25th 2026
- Category: Body Contouring, Commentary
For years the consult was always the same direction: bigger. Lately a different patient sits down across from me. She had buttock implants or a large fat transfer a decade ago, and now she wants smaller, leaner, and natural. The pendulum is swinging, and reversing the work of 2015 is its own operation. Here is […]
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- Posted on: August 25th 2026
- Category: Body Contouring, Commentary
For years the consult was always the same direction: bigger. Lately a different patient sits down across from me. She had buttock implants or a large fat transfer a decade ago, and now she wants smaller, leaner, and natural.
The pendulum is swinging, and reversing the work of 2015 is its own operation. Here is how I answered one of these patients recently, in my own words.
Can It All Come Out?
Yes. The patient I am thinking of had 300 cc silicone implants placed inside the muscle ten years ago, then two Brazilian butt lifts adding about 1,100 cc of fat per side. Her goal was simple: much smaller, leaner, more natural looking. The plan combines implant removal, liposuction to reduce the transferred fat, and a lift to handle the loose skin left behind.
What Happens to the Muscle?
Less than people fear. When a surgeon places an intramuscular implant, the muscle is not really cut. It is spread apart to make a space. Remove the implant and the muscle simply comes back together. The only place I repair muscle is where I make the cut to take the implant out. Stitching the middle of the muscle accomplishes nothing; there is no fascia there, and sutures just rip through.
The Capsule Question
You take as much as you need to. A thick capsule comes out. A ruptured implant means the entire capsule comes out. Sometimes the capsule is so thin that chasing it only damages muscle, and sometimes there is barely a capsule at all. At the ten year mark, rupture or leaking would not change my plan. I clean everything out either way.
Will You Be Flat?
No. You keep projection, just less of it. Occasionally an implant is creating the shape in one specific spot, and removing it would leave a divot. When that happens, I save some of the fat and skin from the lift and flip it in to restore the volume. Smooth, round, natural, smaller. That is the assignment.
Why the Lift Rides Along
Take out an implant and a liter of fat per side and the skin needs somewhere to go. A buttock and lateral thigh lift removes the excess, tightens both the superficial layer and the deep fascial layer so it holds, and smooths the transition into the thigh. The incision is long, but it hides in clothing lines.
The Boring Safety Details That Matter
Drains stay until they are ready, about a week, and they are why seromas stay rare. Hematomas in the buttock are extremely rare; in more than a thousand buttock cases I have never seen one there, because the muscle’s blood supply essentially repairs itself within days. Surgery runs about four to four and a half hours under general anesthesia. You can sit and sleep on your back right away unless I add fat for small irregularities.
Many of these patients had their original surgery abroad. What matters now is where the removal happens: an accredited facility. My surgery center is Quad A accredited, the same standard as a hospital, with pre-op labs and an EKG on everyone.
I put the full patient Q&A, including recovery timelines and out-of-town planning, on the practice site.
Ready to Talk?
Call my office at (915) 590-7900, text the consult line at 1-866-814-0038, or book a consultation at agulloplasticsurgery.com.
#StayBeautiful
@RealDrWorldWide on Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat, @Agullo on X, or @AgulloPlasticSurgery on Facebook.
