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 24th 2026
- Category: Editorial, Skin
The acid is the easy part. Five depths, $100 to $250, and one week of aftercare that decides whether any of it worked.
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- Posted on: August 24th 2026
- Category: Editorial, Skin
Social media tells the chemical peel story well. Acid goes on, skin comes off, a better face appears underneath. Dramatic, visual, satisfying.
It leaves out the only part that decides whether it worked.
I think that peels are great. They do a great job with fine lines and wrinkles and some pigmentation changes, and they do create a refreshment in the face. But the acid takes twenty minutes. What happens over the next four weeks is the actual treatment, and most of it happens at home.
Five Depths, Not One Product
People ask for “a chemical peel” the way they ask for a haircut. Depth is the whole decision, and at our Med Spa the ladder runs five rungs. Here is my team describing it, in their words.
“For clients who want less downtime, maybe with more superficial textural issues, we have our gel peels. We have a glycolic and lactic acid peel, which is great for photo-damaged skin that needs a little more hydration and light exfoliation. We also have a salicylic and mandelic gel peel, which is good for acne, fungal acne, and any kind of congestion, especially for skin that’s a little more oily.”
“Our next level is the micro peel solutions, a glycolic 20% and a salicylic acid option. Like the gel peels, these go a little deeper and have more downtime. The glycolic is for textural issues, hydration, and more of a glow, but a bit more advanced. The salicylic is better for congestion, oily-prone skin, or blackheads. With these, clients still need to stay out of the sun.”
“Then we have our advanced corrective peel, which has salicylic acid, lactic acid, and resorcinol, so it’s really good for photo-damaged skin, congestion, inflammation, fine lines, texture, and hormonal acne. It’s kind of an all-in-one, but more advanced with more downtime, at 14% lactic and 14% salicylic.”
At the top of the range sits Smart TCA. “The TCA penetrates deeper into the skin, so it helps with photo aging, fine lines, and wrinkles. It has more downtime, and clients might experience more shedding. That’s our deepest treatment.”
One clarification, because this is the kind of thing practices leave vague. In our practice, we only perform light to medium peels, so the results are light to medium. Our deepest peel is still a medium peel. That is a deliberate ceiling and I will explain it below, because the reason has more to do with El Paso than with the acid.
Gel peels start at $100. The aggressive end runs to about $250 a session. That is the honest range, and I would rather publish it than make you call to find out.
The matching rule is unglamorous, and my team applies it at the consultation: “If the patient has superficial fine lines and wrinkles, the appearance of their pores is an issue, or they have post-acne hyperpigmentation, that’s going to need a more superficial peel. If the patient’s concern is deeper fine lines and wrinkles, some skin laxity, or deeper acne scarring, we’d need a deeper chemical peel that reaches all the way down to the dermis in order to get the patient’s wanted result.”
Going deeper than your problem requires buys downtime you did not need. Going shallower buys a nice afternoon and nothing else.
What Recovery Actually Looks Like
Patients underestimate this, so here is the plain description from the team that performs them.
“Usually with a superficial peel, patients only experience some light flaking and light dryness, which is why keeping the skin hydrated and drinking a lot of water is so important. With a deeper chemical peel, flaking usually starts around day three to four, and the patient gets more of a shed, think of a snake-like shedding effect. The patient can use clean scissors to trim off the skin as it starts to shed, but again, they really need to focus on hydration, drinking a lot of water, and keeping the skin nice and moisturized.”
“It can take a week to a week and a half to fully shed, so I’d limit sun exposure for at least two weeks after treatment. Makeup is generally safe after a couple of days. If you don’t mind looking a little crazy while you’re shedding, you can apply makeup on top, as long as you’re always wearing your SPF.”
If you have an event in ten days, that is a real scheduling problem, not a minor one. Plan accordingly or pick a lighter peel.
The Part Nobody Films
Ask my team what goes wrong and they do not talk about the acid.
“The most common mistake is not listening to your aftercare instructions,” they tell patients. “Exfoliating too soon can cause barrier damage. Being in the sun without sunscreen, or wearing it but not applying enough or reapplying every two hours, which is super important. Activities that expose the skin to heat can also aggravate it and cause hyperpigmentation. And not having a good skincare routine, or not moisturizing enough afterward, can cause an adverse reaction.”
That heat clause is the trap, and patients never see it coming.
Yes, this is something that happens, especially in our region. Many of our patients are skin types three, four, five, and six, so they are more prone to hyperpigmentation. And El Paso and the southwest area is known to be sunny almost year round, so even in the winter, it’s difficult to block sun exposure.
On higher risk patients, we will pre-treat with skin lighteners and prepare the skin beforehand. We’re very strict afterwards about sun exposure and being religious about using a sunblock, and even avoiding heat and activities like hot yoga, because melasma can come back with heat, not just direct sun exposure.
Read that last part twice. Not light. Heat.
After a light to moderate peel, there is strict no sun exposure for the first four weeks, and it continues to be strict for the first three to four months, although there is a slight leeway. Now for patients that we’re treating for melasma, really, the avoidance of sun exposure and protection should be a lifetime lifestyle.
That is the entire protocol, and skipping it is why some people conclude peels do not work.
Why We Stop at Medium
Here is the part that makes our practice different from one in Seattle, and it is not a marketing difference.
Now we are limited because we only perform light to medium peels, because most of our patients are in the higher Fitzpatrick scale, skin types ranging from three, four, five, and six. Patients in the one and two can have deeper peels without having as much risk of hypo or hyperpigmentation, and this is true also for laser treatments. So we are limited by the geography as well, in terms of lots of sun exposure in the southwest.
Limited twice over, in other words. Once by skin type, once by latitude. I would rather work inside that limit than fight it and hand someone a pigment problem worse than the one they walked in with.
So I think that peels work great to resurface the skin with shorter downtimes. We can get better resurfacing with our Sciton MicroLaserPeel and Profractional laser, and we can get skin tightening with our Morpheus8.
When someone needs more than a medium peel delivers, I do not reach for a stronger acid. I reach for a different machine.
When I Tell Patients Not to Bother
Really, the patients that are candidates are those with fine lines and wrinkles, and some pigmentation, but it will not treat severe wrinkles. Although it will improve them somewhat, we do have better options for those patients.
My team draws the same line from the other side:
“Patients who should skip chemical peels and look toward a laser, RF microneedling, or a surgical result are those who have severe skin laxity, severe fine lines and wrinkles, or severe acne scarring. Sometimes peels aren’t enough for those types of patients. If you have those severe concerns, I would recommend a resurfacing laser, Morpheus8, which is our RF microneedling, or even surgery to get your desired result. Every patient is different, and some people do need something a little more aggressive to reach their skin goals.”
Those patients belong with a resurfacing laser, with Morpheus8 and RF microneedling, or in an operating room. I wrote about where those lines fall in the radiofrequency piece.
This is the practical argument for a med spa attached to a surgical practice. When the honest answer is “this needs a laser” or “this needs surgery,” nobody has to protect a peel booking to say it.
Where I Fit In This
I do not perform the peels. My Med Spa team does, and they are better at skin than I am.
What I contribute is the boundary. Knowing where topical treatment stops and energy or surgery begins is a surgical judgment, and having that judgment in the building keeps the recommendations honest.
For the record: double board-certified, Mayo Clinic plastic surgery fellowship, Clinical Associate Professor of Plastic Surgery at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Castle Connolly Top Doctor thirteen years running.
The clinical detail, including the depth-matching table and the full recovery timeline, lives in the full clinical guide.
Ready to Talk?
If your skin concern is real but you are not sure whether it needs acid, energy, or surgery, come find out before you spend money on the wrong one. 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 guide on agulloplasticsurgery.com, and the Med Spa service overview at swplasticsurgery.com.
- Posted on: August 23rd 2026
- Category: Body Contouring, Commentary
Nobody thinks about their belly button until it looks wrong. The fix is smaller than most people expect, and for the right patient it happens under local.
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- Posted on: August 23rd 2026
- Category: Body Contouring, Commentary
A patient flew into El Paso last month to ask me about two things that had bothered her since a prior surgery: a belly button that healed flat, and a raised scar on her lower back. Seven minutes of consult dictation answered both. I am publishing the exchange nearly as it happened, identifiers removed, because patients keep asking me the same questions.
Her: Why does my belly button look flat?
Me: “When I went in, there was very little skin. I have to make it like a new one from scratch. This is the only skin you had, the tiny bit in the middle. It’s the only skin you had that was actually the belly button. So I have to bring in this to make it look in, and so we don’t see a scar. And I think it’s gonna look a lot better.
“And then depending on how it heals, or even during the surgery, sometimes I put a little bit of fat around it so it gives it more of a depth. So we can start planning. It should only be probably about a thirty, forty-five minute procedure.”
Her: They wanted you to look at the back. One of the scars is raised.
Me: “So there’s two choices here. It’s like a hypertrophic scar. So one is to put steroid in it. It’ll make it flatter, but it’ll probably make it wider. The other one is just to do a revision, do this area here and then re-suture it, and it should heal better because there won’t be as much tension as the first time. That will probably give you a better-looking scar in the end. Is this the part that you’re most concerned with, the part right here?”
Her: Yeah, just the raised part.
Me: “I think if we do the steroid, it will be flat, but it will get wider. So I think it’s gonna look better if we actually do the revision, and since we’re gonna be doing something anyway, we could just do the back at the same time.”
Her: Not putting me out, right? We can still do it with local?
Me: “It’ll probably take a little longer, probably about an hour.”
Both procedures, one visit, local anesthesia only. My exam note from that day: “Patient doesn’t have much belly button skin, so it looks flat. We will have to do a new umbilicus with possibly some fat grafting, and revision of the hypertrophic scar in the back and the coccyx area.”
The takeaway
A flat or scarred navel after a tummy tuck or other abdominal surgery is fixable. On its own it is a thirty to forty-five minute procedure. Paired with a scar revision, about an hour. For the right patient, no general anesthesia at all.
I am a double board-certified plastic surgeon, a Mayo Clinic fellowship alum, and I teach plastic surgery as a Clinical Associate Professor at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center.
Ready to Talk?
If your belly button or a scar has been bothering you, let’s look at it together. Call the office at (915) 590-7900, text us at 1-866-814-0038, or book a consultation at drworldwide.com.
#StayBeautiful
@RealDrWorldWide on Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat, @Agullo on X, or @AgulloPlasticSurgery on Facebook.
