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: June 29th 2026
- Category: Body Contouring, Commentary
A surgeon’s candid take on liposuction 360 and fat transfer, why over-resection ruins results, and how judgment and aftercare keep the contour smooth.
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- Posted on: June 29th 2026
- Category: Body Contouring, Commentary
You can spot a bad liposuction from across a room. The contour is wrong. The waist has a divot where it should have a curve, the belly button sits at a strange angle, and there is that scooped, hollow look that says someone took out too much. That is the result patients are terrified of when they sit down across from me, and they are right to be.
Here is the thing nobody selling you a discount lipo wants to say out loud. The procedure is not hard to perform. It is hard to perform with restraint.
I do a lot of these. Counting by treated areas, I do roughly ten thousand a year. Counting by patients, somewhere between five and six hundred. That volume teaches you one lesson over and over: the smooth result and the lumpy one separate on judgment, not effort.
What Liposuction 360 Actually Treats
Three-sixty is exactly what it sounds like. We treat the full abdomen including the waistline, a little blending into the mons, the lateral chest, the upper and lower back, and the flanks. We are sculpting all the way around the trunk rather than flattening one panel of it.
For arms, the approach is essentially circumferential too. The goal is a contour that reads from every angle, not just head-on in a mirror.
The Real Skill Is Knowing When to Stop
The over-done look comes from one mistake: removing too much fat. You have to leave enough healthy fat behind so the result still looks like a body and not a deflated balloon. A bad lipo announces itself. The contour is irregular, the belly button looks off, and you can tell at a glance that someone had work done.
I tighten the skin with J-Plasma so the surface smooths back down over what is left. How much it tightens depends on how your skin responds, and I will not promise you a number I cannot control.
How I Keep It Smooth Afterward
Two things prevent the lumps and fibrosis people dread, and neither is glamorous.
First, lymphatic massage. We have an in-house tech, and I want you in two or three times a week for about four weeks. That breaks up fibrosis before it sets. Second, I leave a small drain in the abdomen, so when you do those massages, any trapped fluid comes out fast. Lumpiness almost always traces back to fluid getting stuck, so draining it early is the cheapest insurance you can buy.
“Will Lipo Fix the Bulge When I Relax?”
Often, no, and I will tell you that to your face. What I can remove is what we can pinch. If you have a bulge that appears when your muscles relax, that is usually the muscles themselves separating, and the only thing that repairs separated muscle is a tummy tuck.
A tummy tuck makes the abdomen flat and tight and rebuilds the muscle wall like a built-in corset. It is a bigger improvement than lipo alone, and it comes with a scar. That trade-off is yours to make, but you should make it with the full picture in front of you, not after the fact.
Don’t Throw the Fat Away
This is the decision I push patients hardest on. Once we discard your fat, it is gone, and buying volume back later with a product like Sculptra gets expensive fast.
We do not need to do a dramatic Brazilian Butt Lift to make this worthwhile. Sometimes filling the hip dips is enough to carry a smooth line from waist to hip without adding projection. I tailor it from very subtle to dramatic, working off a photo of the shape you actually like, and I transfer fat with a deliberate overfill because roughly thirty percent reabsorbs. It looks a little full at first, then settles into the result we planned.
Lipo Alone vs. Lipo With a Tummy Tuck
| What’s Bothering You | The Honest Answer |
|---|---|
| Pinchable fat, skin that snaps back | Liposuction 360 |
| Bulge only when muscles relax | Tummy tuck repairs separated muscle |
| Loose skin after weight loss | Tummy tuck or excision, not lipo |
| Flat tummy plus loss of curve | Lipo plus fat transfer to hips |
What Recovery Is Really Like
Easier than the videos suggest. I have had liposuction myself, so this is not a guess. The soreness is like going back to the gym after a long layoff: uncomfortable with movement, but tolerable. If you have had a C-section, this is the easier recovery.
You see a difference almost immediately, though you will be swollen. We provide two Marena fajas with clips so we can size you down as the swelling drops, worn for four weeks, off twice a day to shower. You shower the next day, my nurse visits to help with that first one, and most swelling clears by two weeks. Improvement keeps going for up to six months.
Why Volume Sells Liposuction Short
Here is an opinion that costs me the occasional easy sale. Liposuction is not really a fat-removal procedure. It is a contouring procedure, and the difference matters.
If all I did was vacuum out the maximum amount of fat, I could give you a number on a chart and a worse-looking body. The artistry is in what stays: the way the waist still curves, the way the back blends into the flank, the way the line carries from one region to the next without a seam. That is why the fat transfer half of this conversation is not an upsell. Moving a little of your own fat to a hollow can do more for the overall shape than removing another ounce ever would. Subtraction and addition, working together, beat brute-force removal every time.
The Credential Behind the Caution
Double board-certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery and the American Board of Surgery, Mayo Clinic plastic surgery fellowship, Clinical Associate Professor of Plastic Surgery at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center Paul L. Foster School of Medicine, and Castle Connolly Top Doctor for thirteen consecutive years. Body contouring is a large part of what I do, and I treat the restraint as seriously as the technique.
Ready to Talk?
If you want contour without the over-done tell, let us map it out together. For the patient-facing walkthrough, see the companion post on agulloplasticsurgery.com. For the recovery and massage menu, see the version on swplasticsurgery.com.
Call (915) 590-7900, text 1-866-814-0038, or book online at agulloplasticsurgery.com. #StayBeautiful.
@RealDrWorldWide on Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat, @Agullo on X, or @AgulloPlasticSurgery on Facebook.
- Posted on: June 28th 2026
- Category: Aesthetic Planning, Commentary
A surgeon on the quiet shift in patient behavior: from booking on credit to planning and saving for surgery, why the planners make better choices, and the GLP-1 driver.
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- Posted on: June 28th 2026
- Category: Aesthetic Planning, Commentary
Before, patients used to come in ready to book and asking for the next available date, using credit for the payments or financing. That has definitely changed over the last five years. Now I see patients in their early twenties and thirties who come in for a consultation without any intention of booking, but rather to learn about the procedure, the recovery times, and the cost of the surgery, so that they can start saving up for it.
It is one of the more interesting behavior shifts I have watched across the desk, and I think it is worth writing down.
What the New Patient Looks Like
I see it in patients in their forties and fifties who are thinking about a facelift or facial rejuvenation procedure in three to five years. I also see the patients who just want to avoid credit debt, so they bypass financing or paying with their credit cards. Although they may have an earlier timeline for their procedure, maybe within a year, they prefer to save once they learn the cost and pay it off before surgery. Or some of them actually start making payments directly here at the clinic, without any interest, before they have their procedure.
It is surprising that a lot of patients are coming in this way.
Why the Planning Makes Sense
The planning actually makes sense, because aesthetic treatments fall into two buckets. The first bucket is the treatments that are performed routinely, like botulinum toxin every four months, fillers every year or every two years, facials every one or two months, and skin tightening procedures once or twice a year. These are expenses that patients have already learned and can foresee. The other bucket is the surgical procedures, which obviously have a larger sticker price, and they do require financial planning, whether it’s done beforehand or by budgeting for payments afterwards.
The Part I Find Most Encouraging
What I do see is that the patients who are planning ahead are actually making better decisions and choices, rather than looking for the latest bargain or deal. They’re looking for the most qualified surgeons for their procedures. They’re looking for board-certified plastic surgeons. They’re doing their research. And although many times these providers are on the more expensive side, they’re planning for that expense and that quality.
Patients who haven’t planned for these financial expenses tend, a lot of times, to look for the least expensive option, which sometimes is a non-board-certified provider, or they choose to travel abroad. And these are the patients who usually run into trouble or complications. That is the part that matters. The planning behavior is not just financially smart. It correlates with better, safer choices.
The GLP-1 Driver
This trend has become more evident with the GLP-1s, like Ozempic, or semaglutide-like treatments. These patients see a quick weight loss, which a lot of times transforms into accelerated aging and changes in their body contour. And as they’re seeing this, they’re starting to plan ahead toward when they will achieve their weight loss goal.
While they’re getting some treatments to slow the changes and restore some of the lost volume, they are planning toward more long-lasting and effective solutions like facelifts, breast lifts or augmentations, tummy tucks, buttock lifts, or even Brazilian butt lifts. And these patients really stem from twenty-year-olds to patients in their sixties and seventies. There is not one age-specific sector in the GLP-1 population.
Why This Is Good for the Field
A patient who plans is a patient who shops on quality instead of price. That is good for them and good for the field. The bargain hunt is where the complications come from, and a planning culture pushes patients toward board certification, real research, and a sequence that makes sense, rather than the cheapest available date. The routine maintenance treatments hold the line while the patient saves for the surgical step that actually solves the concern.
The Credential Behind the Opinion
Double board-certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery and the American Board of Surgery, American College of Surgeons Fellow, Mayo Clinic plastic surgery fellowship, Clinical Associate Professor of Plastic Surgery at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center Paul L. Foster School of Medicine, and Castle Connolly Top Doctor for thirteen consecutive years. I would rather a patient plan for two years and choose well than book tomorrow and choose badly.
Ready to Talk?
If you are planning rather than booking, that is exactly the right instinct. Come learn the procedure, the recovery, and the real cost.
For the patient-facing version with the two buckets in detail, see the companion post on agulloplasticsurgery.com. For the practice’s planning and financing resources, see the version on swplasticsurgery.com.
Call (915) 590-7900, text 1-866-814-0038, or book online at agulloplasticsurgery.com. #StayBeautiful.
@RealDrWorldWide on Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat, @Agullo on X, or @AgulloPlasticSurgery on Facebook.
