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 22nd 2026
- Category: Aesthetic Analysis, Commentary
The Daily Mail asked me to read Adriana Lima’s face after Madrid Fashion Week. My answer: it does not look like a face that has had surgery. It looks like a face that lost the volume.
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- Posted on: September 22nd 2026
- Category: Aesthetic Analysis, Commentary
“I think everybody is in agreement that Adriana Lima looks a lot more like she did in her Victoria’s Secret years. We see the high, defined cheekbones, the visible hollow below them, a sharp jawline, and natural lips, not overdone.”
That was my first line to the Daily Mail when Raven Saunt asked me to read Adriana Lima’s Madrid Fashion Week photos. It ran the same evening. Here is everything I sent her, not just the lines that fit.
I have never treated her. Photo read, not a diagnosis.
Then and now
“Around 2023 and 2024, her midface was much fuller and rounder, but she still looked youthful. Her cheeks sat lower and wider, and her lower face was much heavier, but there was no visible jowling.”
Heavy, no jowls. That is weight, not age.
“So really the difference is not that any volume was added, but rather that it has been taken off, and her structures are now showing better.”
Not surgery
“I don’t think this is surgical. It is quite clear that she’s had surgery in the past, but not in this recent transition. A facelift will change the position of the tissues, and what we’re seeing on her is a change in the volume or amount of tissue.”
Position versus volume. A deep plane facelift moves tissue. Weight loss shrinks it.
“What could explain it from a surgical perspective? I think the main difference here is her weight. She’s been pretty open about gaining weight after her pregnancies, and as surgeons we know that 10 or 15 pounds makes a huge difference in the face, whether you gain it or lose it.”
Ten or fifteen pounds. I wrote about the other direction, the face that empties too fast, in face after weight loss. Lima is the face that filled and came back.
The filler
“It may also have been that she used filler back then, in a period when it was common for filler to be overdone, and it may have been dissolved.”
Filler is a tax. The low, wide cheek of 2023 is what it looks like paid a few years too many. Dissolving it is one injection.
What she may have done instead
“GLP-1s cannot be ruled out in this era. Combined with diet and exercise, and high protein intake, these results are achievable.”
“I do think she may have used radiofrequency for skin tightening in this transition. She doesn’t have the temporal wasting we usually see in weight loss, so she may have had some biostimulators or fillers added to the temples. Botox to the masseters can help create that hollow appearance below the cheekbones. If anything a buccal fat pad removal can accentuate it even further.”
Nothing on that list is a facelift.
| What people assume | What the photos support | The tell |
|---|---|---|
| Facelift | No | Volume changed, position did not |
| Buccal fat removal | Possible, not required | The hollow appears with weight loss alone |
| Filler dissolved | Plausible | The 2023 cheek sat low and wide |
| Radiofrequency tightening | Plausible | Skin kept up with the volume loss |
| Temple biostimulator or filler | Plausible | No temporal wasting |
| Masseter Botox | Possible | Sharper hollow below the cheekbone |
The line they printed
“In conclusion, from the photos, it just doesn’t look like a face that has had surgery, but a face that has lost the excessive volume and allowed the deeper structures to show through.”
The structures were always there.
Why they ask me
Mayo Clinic fellowship. Clinical Associate Professor of Plastic Surgery at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. Deep plane facelifts every week in El Paso. Castle Connolly Top Doctor thirteen years running.
Ready to talk?
Bring the photos. Same read I gave the Daily Mail, including the option of dissolving what is there and doing nothing else. Call (915) 590-7900, text 1-866-814-0038, or book at agulloplasticsurgery.com. #StayBeautiful
Find me at @RealDrWorldWide on Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat, @Agullo on X, or @AgulloPlasticSurgery on Facebook.
Companion reads: the surgery-or-not test on Agullo Plastic Surgery, the dissolve-and-tighten side on Southwest Plastic Surgery.
- Posted on: September 21st 2026
- Category: Commentary
You can lose fat. You can build obliques. The bones do not care. A surgeon on the old rib removal, the scarless repositioning that replaced it, and the fingertip test that tells you whether to ask.
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- Posted on: September 21st 2026
- Category: Commentary
I get asked about rib removal at least once a week, usually by someone who has been doing everything right for years and still cannot find a waist. Here is what I tell them.
“The waist is defined, or restricted, by the distance between the superior crest of the pelvis and the last rib. In some patients, this last rib almost touches the pelvis, which means that there really can be no further reduction in the waistline. You can lose fat. You can build obliques. The bones do not care.”
“To create a smaller waist, what we do is cut the outer portion of the last two floating ribs so that we can reposition them in a narrower configuration. That’s the way we create a smaller waistline. We move the floor.”
And then the question underneath the question. Do I take the ribs out?
“No. This used to be done by removing the ribs in their entirety, which required a large incision, had an increased risk of injury to the lung or nerves, and sometimes led to chronic pain. That version earned its bad reputation.”
“The way this procedure is done now is through a small needle incision, using a device called a Piezotome, which is an ultrasonic needle device that helps us cut the outer portion of the rib with ultrasound guidance, and then the ribs are fractured into their new position. Today it is a scarless procedure with substantially fewer risks and complications.”
“I think this was a controversial procedure when we were removing entire ribs and accepting large scars and increased risks. With this new scarless technique, the risks are minimal. There is no scar. And if we only treat the two floating ribs, it’s an easy recovery. It’s not controversial at all.”
People also worry about what the ribs were doing before I touched them. They are still doing it.
“That’s the beauty of it. With rib repositioning, we’re leaving the ribs in place, so they’re still protecting the organs. The floating ribs are located posteriorly and protect the kidneys, and when we reposition them, they’re still doing that function. The false ribs are protecting the lower end of the lung and the abdomen, and we’re just repositioning them. In excision rib surgery, the ribs are removed and they’re no longer protecting anything. In repositioning, they’re just placed in a new position while still protecting the vital organs.”
The names are the other confusion.
“You may have seen it as RibX, RibXcar, Ribella, WASP, RIBOSS, H-Curve rib remodeling, Invisarib, or the Barbie waist. We tend to call it rib repositioning.”
One procedure. I explained the naming circus here before.
Now the number everyone came for.
“If we reposition the last two floating ribs, most patients’ waistline is reduced by about three to four inches, with a lung injury risk of less than one percent.”
There is a bigger version. It involves the last two false ribs, a CT scan first, and a complication rate I quote out loud.
“By adding the two false ribs, we can reduce the waistline by six to seven inches.”
Who asks for this? Athletic women with no waist to begin with. Curvy women who want more curve. Patients who have already had liposuction and a tummy tuck and want the last inch nobody else could give them. And the person who is not sure.
“Touch your last rib, the one on the most bottom, and keep going down. If you don’t have a lot of distance between your rib and your hip, it can come in a lot. There are no scars. I just make two little needle points and bring it in, so it’ll make the waist smaller for sure. But if your waistline is already good enough, you don’t need it. It just makes the hourglass a little bit more.”
The recovery is a waist trainer, and I mean that literally.
“Corset training is not a gimmick here, it is the recovery. We actually use the waist trainer for three months to help heal the ribs in their new position. Many patients notice their waist trainer can be placed tighter and tighter as they heal, and they often have to downsize to a smaller waist trainer toward the end of the three months.”
Five to seven days to easy activity. Three months to everything. Exparel in the area before I start, so the first three days are numb.
The cost, as of this writing: “As a standalone procedure, rib repositioning is ninety-five hundred dollars. If it’s done in addition to other procedures, it’s a forty-five hundred dollar add-on.” The fees page is the place to check after that.
One more thing, because the internet is full of people who bought a Piezotome last month.
“This technology did not come into development until about two or three years ago, so be careful who you let near your ribs. I am a board-certified general surgeon and plastic surgeon, and I have experience with rib fractures and rib removal procedures from both careers. I use the ultrasound to identify the ribs and visualize while I’m cutting the outer table before repositioning, and this decreases the risk of injury to other structures. The Mayo Clinic fellowship taught me many things, and one of them was respect for what sits behind a rib.”
Fingertip on the rib. Slide down. If there is no room, you know where to find me. The full clinical version, with the comparison table, is on agulloplasticsurgery.com, and the procedure page has the rest.
Call (915) 590-7900, text 1-866-814-0038, or book at agulloplasticsurgery.com. #StayBeautiful
Find me at @RealDrWorldWide on Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat, @Agullo on X, or @AgulloPlasticSurgery on Facebook.
