The university departments where Leo Lapuerta, MD, FACS, teaches share a two-part name: Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. Patients in a cosmetic practice tend to hear the first half. The second half covers surgery that restores form and function to people born with, or living with, a deformity.
Dr. Leo Lapuerta has spent more than 30 years in plastic surgery and runs an elective cosmetic practice in the Houston area. He has also made many trips with Operation San Jose, a team that provides plastic and reconstructive surgery in underprivileged areas of Mexico, Central and South America.
The work on the trips
In his own account, the team treats children and adults with genetic and developmental deformities. His practice describes the same commitment as long-standing, and says he volunteers his services to economically challenged children born with functional and aesthetic malformations. The practice presents that work alongside his teaching roles as part of giving back in the field of reconstructive plastic surgery.
Those patients live in underserved areas, where specialized surgical care can be hard to reach. Depending on the condition, reconstruction can aim at function, appearance or both, and the surgeon’s job is to plan around the tissue each patient has.
The details of individual cases stay with the patients and the team. The public record is short: a surgeon with a full practice in Texas has returned to this volunteer work on many trips.
Training built for both halves
Dr. Lapuerta’s education covered the reconstructive side of the specialty from the start. After Stanford University and UT Southwestern Medical School, he completed general surgery training at St. John’s Hospital in Detroit and a plastic and reconstructive surgery fellowship at St. Joseph Hospital in Houston. He describes 16 years of education and training after high school.
He is certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery and the American Board of Surgery, and holds certification in Surgery of the Hand, a field built around restoring how the hand works. He is also a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons and a past President of the Houston Society of Plastic Surgeons.
Form and function, in his words
His explanation of why he chose plastic surgery reads like a description of reconstructive work. He says the specialty lets him help patients of all ages, female and male, and work with each patient’s anatomy, with its benefits and limitations, to create both the desired aesthetic and a functionally beneficial outcome.
“Plastic surgery allows you to reform the physical body in a way that restores a patient’s soul.”
He calls himself a positive person who can see potential where others may see something broken or undesirable. In his view, the specialty gives him the chance to take what looks to some like a deficit and reshape it into something that brings vitality and joy to a patient.
“Seeing the positive impact on a patient’s daily life when they regain form and function is so rewarding to me personally.”
Bringing it back to Houston
The mission trips sit alongside a teaching role at home. Dr. Lapuerta is Chairman of Plastic Surgery at St. Joseph Hospital and serves as teaching faculty for UT-Houston Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, the University of Texas Medical Branch Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery program in Galveston, and the Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery Fellowship at Houston Methodist Hospital. His practice says he believes that academic involvement keeps his knowledge and skills on the cutting edge.
His Houston-area patients come for elective surgery, including facelifts, neck lifts, tummy tucks and mommy makeovers, and he operates in a QuadA (AAAASF) accredited surgical facility he owns, working with physician anesthesiologists. Every operation, at home or abroad, carries risks, and planning starts with an honest look at the patient’s anatomy.
That starting point links the two halves of his career. The patient might be a Houston-area adult planning a facelift or a child seen on an Operation San Jose trip, and in both cases Dr. Lapuerta describes the same task: work with the anatomy in front of him, benefits and limitations included.
This article is for general information only and is not medical advice. Results vary from patient to patient. Consult a board-certified plastic surgeon or your physician about your own situation. Written in partnership with Joseph Lambert, a publicist working with Leo Lapuerta, MD Plastic Surgery.
