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Top 3 Plastic Surgeons

An independent publication on aesthetic and plastic surgery

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Profile of a woman in her fifties seated by a window with her hair pinned up, the base of her neck and upper back visible in soft daylight

The Lead · Procedure Deep-Dive

Buffalo Hump Liposuction: The Upper-Back Fat Pad That Needs a Lab Result Before It Needs a Cannula

The fat pad at the base of the neck has become a short-form video staple, sold as a forty-minute liposuction under local anesthesia with a small scar and a straighter silhouette. What the videos skip is that the dorsocervical fat pad is a physical exam finding in endocrinology textbooks before it is a cosmetic target: it is a classic sign of cortisol excess, a hallmark of drug-associated lipodystrophy, and a frequent stand-in for a curved spine that no cannula can fix. Here is what a buffalo hump actually is, which humps are not fat at all, what the workup should look like before anyone suctions it, and why the removed fat sometimes comes back.

September 2, 2026

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By The Editorial Desk

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13 min

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A woman in her late twenties standing in three-quarter profile by a studio window in leggings and a fitted top, hands clasped in front of her, the natural contour of her hip in soft daylight

Procedure Deep-Dive

Hip Dip Fat Grafting: A Contour Made of Bone, a Graft That Half Survives, and a Filler No Regulator Approved for the Hip

The indentation between the top of the pelvis and the widest point of the thigh has gone from an unnamed feature of the human skeleton to a search term with its own surgery. Fat grafting to the hip dips is sold as a small add-on: liposuction of the waist, a few hundred milliliters into each side, a rounder silhouette by summer. What the marketing leaves out is that the dip sits over one of the most fibrous, least forgiving zones on the body, that a meaningful share of the grafted fat does not survive there, and that every alternative on the menu is either off-label, unapproved, or illegal. Here is what a hip dip actually is, why squats do not fix it, how the grafting is done, and what to ask before paying for it.

September 2, 2026 · 15 min

A woman in her thirties in a white cotton camisole seated on the edge of a bed in soft morning light, arms folded loosely, looking toward the window

Procedure Deep-Dive

Inverted Nipple Correction: A Grade, a Duct, and the One Inversion That Needs a Mammogram Before It Needs a Surgeon

Inverted nipple correction is one of the shortest procedures in aesthetic breast surgery: local anesthesia, a few millimeters of incision, and a nipple that projects by the time the patient sits up. It is also one of the least discussed, which is why patients arrive with a folk understanding of it built from suction gadgets, piercing forums, and a vague sense that it is a cosmetic quirk. It is not always cosmetic. The grade of the inversion decides whether the milk ducts survive the operation, the technique decides whether the nipple stays out, and a nipple that turned inward in adulthood, on one side, is a diagnostic mammogram before it is anything else. Here is how the grading works, what the two families of operation actually do, why recurrence is the signature complication, and what the evidence says about the non-surgical alternatives.

September 2, 2026 · 14 min

The City Guides

Top surgeons, city by city.

Short, considered editorial picks for the cities where aesthetic medicine has the highest concentration of practitioners doing distinct work. We add a city when we have done the reporting, not before.

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§ 01 · Editorial Standards

Choosing a plastic surgeon is among the few decisions that cannot be appealed. It deserves real reporting, not advertising dressed as a recommendation.

Top 3 Plastic Surgeons is an independent publication covering aesthetic and plastic surgery: the procedures, the advances in technique, and the surgeons doing the most considered work in the field. We report on it. We do not sell placement within it.

We do not accept paid placement, and we do not rank by advertising spend or by the volume of five-star reviews a practice can solicit. Our reporting draws on board records, peer interviews, outcomes data, and direct patient testimony, revisited as the field changes.

§ 05 · The Letter

One letter, every Sunday.

Each issue carries one new surgeon profile, one dispatch from the reporting desk, and an editor's note on whatever question we could not stop thinking about that week. No sponsors. No partner content. No reason to exist except the subject.

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