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: September 10th 2026
- Category: Commentary
The most interesting number in the report is the one that is not there.
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- Posted on: September 10th 2026
- Category: Commentary
My specialty publishes procedure counts every year. This year there is no count for neuromodulators and no count for fillers, which together are most of what gets done to faces in this country.
The reason given: the “dynamic nature of the minimally invasive treatment market.” They ranked by share instead. Neuromodulators about half. HA fillers 30 percent.
What I said about it
“I am surprised that they weren’t able to give us exact numbers from the numbers reported by surgeons, but still had a percentage.”
“Again, I’m surprised that we couldn’t get an exact count of the amount of fillers when we could still get an exact count of the amount of botulinum toxin and many other procedures.”
“I think the truth is that fillers have decreased considerably compared to other procedures, botulinum toxin still being number one. In my practice, I’ve seen more than a twenty to thirty percent decrease in the use of fillers, and a shift toward biostimulators and donor fat grafts instead.”
Who gets nervous when filler declines
“There has been such a decrease in the use of fillers that manufacturers and even med spas have become worried, as this is really the only thing they provide, since they do not have a way to provide surgical procedures, which are becoming far more common than hyaluronic acid fillers.”
If injectables are the only thing you sell, injectables are the only thing you can recommend. Read that as a comment on menus, not on people.
Botulinum toxin is the exception
“Yes, botulinum toxin is half of all minimally invasive treatments. I think it’s probably more than half in reality in our practice. This doesn’t mean that it’s the safest bet; it means that it’s something that’s tried and proven. It really is a maintenance therapy.”
“I myself get botulinum toxin in the forehead, crow’s feet, and glabella lines every three to four months, just to maintain the wrinkle free appearance with a dose that still lets me express my face without looking abnormal.”
“Patients really like the results, and that’s why they keep coming back to get the botulinum toxin injections.”
The part that actually bothers me
A market nobody can count is a market nobody can regulate. And these estimates only ever covered board-certified plastic surgeons, so everything injected outside that group was never in the table to begin with.
Fillers are also losing ground to fat, which is its own story.
More on how we approach this at Southwest Plastic Surgery in El Paso.
Call (915) 590-7900 or text 1-866-814-0038.
#StayBeautiful
Source: ASPS 2025 Procedural Statistics Report, minimally invasive section. Commentary from Dr. Agullo’s 2026-09-07 dictation.
- Posted on: September 10th 2026
- Category: Commentary, Patient Safety
The catastrophic BBL complication has one cause, and it happens in one plane of tissue. A surgeon on why he will not do the operation without watching a screen.
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- Posted on: September 10th 2026
- Category: Commentary, Patient Safety
For a stretch of years, the Brazilian butt lift carried the highest death rate of any operation in aesthetic surgery. That statistic was real, and it was earned.
It was also, it turns out, about one centimeter of tissue.
“There have been no cases of fat embolus when fat has only been injected in the subcutaneous fat. The only cases of fat embolism have all had intramuscular fat injections.”
Read that twice. Not most cases. All of them. The complication that made this operation infamous does not happen in the fat layer. It happens when a cannula ends up in muscle, where the large gluteal veins run, and fat enters the circulation and travels to the lungs.
So the entire safety problem reduces to a question of where the tip of the instrument is. And the tip of the instrument is somewhere you cannot see.
Unless you look.
“The ultrasound shows us exactly where the tip of the cannula is while we’re injecting fat into the buttock. Ideally, the cannula should be injecting fat into the deep fat layer above the muscle. We inject some fat in the superficial fat layer for shaping, but the bulk of the volume is injected in that deep compartment.
“By visualizing exactly where we’re at, we’re avoiding intramuscular or deeper injections, which can cause fat embolism, a very severe complication. That’s the importance of the ultrasound. It makes the procedure safer by knowing exactly where you’re at at all times.”
My protocol has not changed much in years, because it was already built around that idea.
“We continued using blunt tips with cannulas larger than 4 millimeters. We avoided injections into the muscle. We used ultrasound to visualize the location of the tip of the cannula while injecting, making sure not to perform any intramuscular injections. I always use an upward-angled cannula, and the patient is positioned in a jackknife type position.”
Now, the part I want any prospective patient to actually use.
“The most important thing is whether the surgeon is using ultrasound or not. No matter the experience level of the surgeon, there’s always a risk that you can misjudge and be in the wrong plane, and this is completely avoidable with direct visualization.”
Experience is not a substitute for looking. I have done a great many of these and I still put the probe on the skin, because a surgeon’s sense of depth is an estimate and a screen is a measurement.
Two groups where that gap matters most:
“That’s especially true of male patients, who have a very thin fat layer, and also massive weight loss patients, who have a very thin fat layer, so they’re at higher risk for intramuscular injections.”
When there is barely any fat between skin and muscle, the margin for error shrinks to almost nothing. Those are exactly the patients most likely to be told the operation is simple.
I spent my terms as vice president and then president of the World Association of Gluteal Surgeons pushing on this.
“I think the biggest achievement of WAGS while I was Vice President and President was educating patients and surgeons, both members and non-members, about safety. Also incorporating ultrasound into the BBL procedure, and creating a course and a certification for using ultrasound for Brazilian butt lifts. We also showed that the BBL can be performed safely.”
Ask your surgeon one question. Do you use ultrasound during the fat injection?
There is no good answer other than yes.
Call (915) 590-7900, text 1-866-814-0038, or book at agulloplasticsurgery.com. #StayBeautiful
Title alternatives (title PICKED 2026-09-09 by blog-publish-driver under the 2026-09-05 standing default; option kept is above)
- Every Reported BBL Fat Embolism Had One Thing in Common
- One Centimeter of Tissue
- Why I Put a Probe on the Skin Before Every Fat Injection
- The Operation Was Never the Problem. The Plane Was.
