Dr. Emmanuel De La Cruz

Dr. Emmanuel De La Cruz is a plastic surgeon in Houston who holds board certification from two bodies: the American Board of Plastic Surgery and the American Board of Surgery. He works at De La Cruz Plastic Surgery and has active surgical privileges at Cypress Surgicare of Texas, St. Luke's Hospital and Memorial Hermann. His work spans facial surgery, breast surgery, hand and microsurgery, and body contouring, with liposuction, including VASER high-definition procedures, as a particular focus. He also manages lipedema and PAH cases. Dr. De La Cruz earned a summa cum laude bachelor's degree in cellular and molecular biology from Texas Tech University, with a minor in biochemistry. He went on to medical school at the University of Texas Medical School in Houston, where he won the Frank C. Webber Prize for Medical Research. Surgical training came next: at Loma Linda University, then a hand and microsurgery fellowship at Oregon Health & Science University, where he performed more than 900 procedures, and a plastic and reconstructive surgery residency at the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta, where he later became chief resident in plastic surgery. He has also trained in high-definition liposuction under Dr. Alfredo Hoyos and in deep plane and ponytail facelifts with mentors Giovanni Botti and Dr. Chia Chi Kao. Each year he travels to the Philippines to operate on children with cleft lip, cleft palate and craniofacial deformities, and has joined surgical mission trips there. He has been invited to speak at ASPS The MEETING 2020, AestheticStanbul and the TDABS meeting in Cartagena, Colombia. He created the Celtic cross technique for immediate umbilical reconstruction, published in the Journal of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgery, and has written on liposuction safety and body contouring, including a 2024 article on lipoplasty in the overweight patient. Recognition includes a Congressional Recognition Award and a Grand Master Total Definer award for high-definition liposuction results, and he has been featured on Latina Spice TV, Fox News and The Isiah Factor.