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 7th 2026
- Category: Commentary, Rhinoplasty
The internet says filler. I say no. What the bump that came back actually is, and what fixing it honestly requires.
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- Posted on: August 7th 2026
- Category: Commentary, Rhinoplasty
The bump on the bridge is the thing patients see in the mirror, and it is the thing that brings people back to me after a rhinoplasty that was otherwise fine.
Sometimes it is bone. Sometimes it is cartilage. And sometimes, in a nose that has already been operated on, it is scar tissue that built up under thick skin and refused to lie flat. That last one is a different problem with a different answer, and it is not the answer the internet gives you.
The internet says filler. I say no, and I will show my work.
Thick Skin Has Memory
In a revision, the bump is often not the original bump. It is scar tissue that formed over the area that was operated on, and thick skin is the reason it stays. Thick skin has memory. It wants to drape back over the old contour, and if it finds anything to hold on to, it re-creates the very shape you paid to remove.
That is why I look at your skin before I look at anything else. Healthy skin is what lets me go back in safely.
The Strongest Opinion I Have on This Subject
Can we just fill around the bump instead of operating? No.
Filler is going to make your nose bigger. That is the whole mechanism: we cheat by adding volume to the places around the bump, so instead of lowering it, we build everything else up to meet it. And then there is the part nobody warns you about. What we see now is that filler in the nose does not really go away. It spreads. It migrates to the sides, and in the end it makes the nose look wide, which is the opposite of what nearly every person who walks into my office is asking for.
I have said for years that fillers are a tax and surgery is an investment. Nowhere is that more literal than the nose.
What I Will Inject, and What I Will Not
Kenalog injections can soften scar tissue on the dorsum, and I use them. They often give partial improvement, and they are a reasonable, low-stakes way to see how much a bump will respond before committing to surgery.
But there is nothing stronger, and I will not freelance. I would never inject something like Kybella into a nose, because it can dissolve things other than fat. Chronic pain and skin discoloration are not trades I am willing to make on someone’s face.
Why the Nose Has to Be Opened Again
If the scar is coming out, I have to see it. Anything else is blind surgery, and blind surgery is how you end up with an irregularity nobody can explain.
A revision on the dorsum means carving out scar tissue and shaving it down under direct vision. And here is the counterintuitive part: because thick skin wants to re-drape over the old shape, I do not aim for a perfectly flat line. I aim for a slight depression, so that when the skin settles, it reads as narrow instead of wide. I may place internal sutures to tuck the skin envelope down so the bump cannot pop back, and I change the dressing approach from whatever was used the first time. If something did not heal the way I wanted, I am not repeating the same conditions.
Operating through scarred tissue always carries some risk to blood supply, and I will tell you honestly whether I think your skin is safe to operate on. If your tip healed well the first time, that tells me a lot. And timing matters: the nose needs to settle and the scar needs to mature before anyone goes back in. I would rather wait and do it once than rush and do it twice.
The Broken Nose Is a Different Operation
A fractured, deviated nose, where the septum blocks air on one side, is a septorhinoplasty: fracture everything again, put it back in its place, straighten the septum. Breathing is the first goal, and the outside is the second, and yes, both usually happen in one operation, planned with 3D imaging so you see the profile before you commit.
The honest risks: where the septum is bent, the mucosa can perforate, which can leave a whistle or nosebleeds. The chance is under one percent, and you should hear it from me before surgery, not discover it after. And the nose keeps growing your whole life, so even a perfectly set nose can shift slightly over time. The breathing improvement is the part I am confident about.
Recovery, briefly: two to two and a half hours under general anesthesia, home the same day, and the nose usually does not hurt. The nuisance is the splints, one week of restricted breathing, then everything comes off and the air moves again. Most of the final result shows at six weeks, refining across the year.
Why I Look at Your Chin While You Talk About Your Nose
Because profiles are read whole. If the chin sits back, the nose looks bigger than it is. A solid silicone chin implant brings the chin forward, tightens the read of the neck, and makes the nose look smaller without touching it. It never needs to be changed, and if we are already fixing the septum, doing both at once is easy. The analysis of the whole face is what you are paying me for.
Why Revisions Are the Real Test
I am double board-certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery and the American Board of Surgery, a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, and a Mayo Clinic plastic surgery fellowship alum. Revision noses are some of the most demanding work in this field: the tissue is scarred, the anatomy is off the textbook page, and the skin remembers what it used to look like.
Which is exactly why I refuse to paper over the problem with filler. In the nose, the tax eventually widens the very thing you wanted narrowed. If the shape is wrong, fix the shape.
For the patient-facing version, see the companion post on agulloplasticsurgery.com. The practice team covers it at swplasticsurgery.com.
Ready to Talk?
If you have a bump that came back, a nose that will not breathe, or a result you are not happy with, come in and let me look at it honestly. Some are worth revising, some are worth waiting on, and some just need a plan. 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: August 6th 2026
- Category: Facelift
Women’s Journal put the scar-free facelift on its July cover. Here is what the cover story got right, and what I tell surgeons and patients about the ponytail lift.
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- Posted on: August 6th 2026
- Category: Facelift
The July issue of Women’s Journal is their Face Issue. The cover is me, arms crossed, in a #StayBeautiful shirt, next to a quote I have said in the operating room more times than I can count: the best results are the ones no one can point to.
Strange feeling, seeing your own sentence printed in serif type on a magazine rack. Also a useful one. Because the story they chose to tell is the story I have been trying to get patients to hear for two years.
Not a new machine. Not an injectable. A facelift you cannot see.
What the Cover Story Actually Covers
The piece, written by Adriana Sinclair, is about the ponytail lift, which is the nickname for what I perform as a total endoscopic deep plane facelift. The name comes from the incision placement. The openings sit so far back inside the hairline that a patient can pull her hair into a high ponytail or a bun without showing a single mark.
No cut in front of the ear. No scar tracing the earlobe. None of the tells that made facelifts recognizable for fifty years.
Instead of lifting skin, I thread an endoscope, a camera thinner than a pencil, beneath the surface and reposition the deeper layers of the face: the brow, the midface, the jawline. The skin comes along because the foundation under it moved, not because I pulled on it.
If you want the full technical walk-through, I wrote it up in April in The Facelift You Can’t See. The Women’s Journal piece is the patient-facing version of that argument.
Tension Is the Enemy
Here is the opinion that runs through everything I do to a face. Tightening skin and adding tension is what creates the pulled, wind-blown look every patient says they are terrified of. Skin is a cover, not a scaffold. Treat it like a scaffold and it tells on you.
The deep plane approach, open or endoscopic, moves the structural layer and lets the skin settle where it belongs. That is why the results read as rested instead of redone. It is also why they hold. Repositioned tissue stays put in a way stretched skin never will.
Surgeons argue about plenty inside this space. How deep, how wide, on whom. I have been in those rooms, including at The Aesthetic Meeting in Boston this spring. But the direction of the field is not really in dispute anymore. Deep plane won.
Training With the Man Who Invented It
The cover story spends time on something I insist on being transparent about: where I learned this.
The ponytail lift was created by Dr. Chia Chi Kao in Santa Monica. I took his intermediate course in Pittsburgh, then applied to the advanced Ponytail Academy, the invitation-only program held at his own operating suite in Santa Monica, and was accepted.
Those days are not lecture-hall days. Cadaver lab on the midface. Live demonstrations of endoscopic tissue elevation. Long arguments about candidacy, because knowing who not to operate on is most of the job.
I brought all of it back to my AAAASF-accredited practice in El Paso, where it joined what Mayo Clinic fellowship training and twenty years of facial surgery had already built. That stack matters. A technique is only as good as the hands and the judgment around it.
Who the Ponytail Lift Is For, and Who It Is Not
Surgeon to reader, candidly: this operation is not for everybody, and any surgeon who tells you otherwise is selling.
The endoscopic version shines for patients who want the brow, midface, and jawline lifted discreetly, typically earlier in the aging curve, before heavy jowling and significant loose skin take over. For a patient with a lot of skin excess, a traditional open deep plane facelift remains the stronger tool, and I offer both, which keeps me honest. When you only own a hammer, every consult looks like a nail.
Recovery between the two is similar. Both rely on repositioning deeper tissue rather than surface tension, which is exactly why both are built to last.
Why a Magazine Cover Matters to Patients in El Paso
There is a line in the piece I want to underline. El Paso used to be a city people left for this kind of surgery. That has reversed. More than eight in ten of my facelift patients now travel to El Paso from out of town, from across Texas and the rest of the country.
A national cover story is not why they come. They come for the work. But the cover is a signal that the work happening on the border is being noticed at the national level, and I am proud of that for my city, not just for my practice. I see patients in English and Spanish, often in the same hour, and that bilingual, binational room is part of what makes this practice what it is.
Thirteen straight years as Best Plastic Surgeon in El Paso. Castle Connolly Top Doctor thirteen consecutive years. Texas Super Doctors Hall of Fame. Those lines have lived on my CV for a while. Seeing the philosophy behind them on a newsstand is new.
The Quote I Will Stand Behind
“The best results are the ones no one can point to.”
That is the whole preservation-first argument in eleven words. If someone can tell you had a facelift, something went wrong: too much tension, too much volume, wrong plane, wrong patient. The win condition is a colleague saying you look well rested and meaning it.
Women’s Journal put that sentence on a cover. My job is to keep making it true one face at a time.
Ready to Talk?
If the cover story raised questions about your own face, let’s answer them properly, in person. Call Southwest Plastic Surgery at (915) 590-7900, text my consult line at 1-866-814-0038, or book through agulloplasticsurgery.com. Find me as @RealDrWorldWide on Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat, @Agullo on X, or @AgulloPlasticSurgery on Facebook. #StayBeautiful
Companion reads: the patient-focused version on agulloplasticsurgery.com and the practice story on swplasticsurgery.com.
