Dr. K. Glen Walton

Dr. Walton attended Dartmouth College for his undergraduate degree before returning south for medical school at Emory. He completed a general surgery residency, earned board certification in general surgery, and then pursued a fellowship in plastic surgery at UT Southwestern in Dallas, one of the more prominent programs in the country at the time. The training was rigorous and demanding, but typical of how plastic surgeons entered the field at the time: build a foundation first, then specialize. “That’s how people went into plastics years ago,” he explains. “They would start with general surgery, and follow it up with plastic surgery. Now they kind of combine the programs.”

Originally, the next step for Dr. Walton was a microsurgery hand fellowship in Australia. Then he and his wife had their first child, and Melbourne got crossed off the list. “I didn’t want to exile my family halfway around the world,” he reveals. So in 1993, he joined a practice in Athens, Georgia, and moved to Gainesville when a spot opened up there. Coming back to Georgia was always part of the plan. His wife is a Georgia Bulldog. His brother was already practicing nearby. His parents were in Atlanta.

“It just made sense,” he says.

He’s been here for 27 years, long enough to care for multiple generations of patients across the region.

Dr. Walton initially had his sights set on chest surgery, but his rotation at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta changed his mind.

Grady is a Level 1 trauma center and one of the busiest hospitals in the Southeast. The patients come in gravely ill, the outcomes are uncertain, and the emotional weight of watching someone not survive a heart or lung surgery was something he found hard to set aside.

“I knew I would be happier focusing on ‘quality of life,’ rather than life-or-death, ‘quantity of life’ situations,” he reflects.

Plastic and reconstructive surgery gave him that opportunity to transform patients’ quality of life, whether he was reconstructing the face or breast after cancer or trauma, or helping a mother of three feel more at home in her body again. It also demanded more breadth of knowledge than any other specialty. “It’s the only field that works from the top of the head all the way down to the toes, from newborns to geriatrics.”

After years of covering facial trauma, wound care and emergency cases, Dr. Walton’s practice evolved and his focus shifted to cosmetic surgery. While most of his procedures today are elective, he still performs breast reconstruction, treats skin cancers and manages complex hand cases when needed.

Dr. Walton has a unique perspective on plastic surgery.

“We’re the tailors of the medical world,” he says.

He goes on to explain, ”If a dress is too long, the only way to improve that is to tailor it upward. It’s the same with skin. You can’t exercise away loose or sagging skin, so we remove the excess and pull it taut to lift and tighten softened contours.” But removing loose skin in and of itself isn’t a magic fix. Skill, knowledge, and the craft of knowing when to reposition the tissues — and when to hold back — are what deliver a refreshed, natural-looking result. So much like a tailor, Dr. Walton takes a very methodical approach to plastic surgery.

“A tight neck looks great on everybody, so during a facelift, I try to make the neck as close to 100% better as I can,” says Dr. Walton. “I’m more conservative with the cheek area. I try to make that about 80% better, because some celebrities have shown us that an overly done facelift looks strange.”

This approach can also be seen when he performs breast and body procedures. For breast lift patients, he will place temporary stitches to elevate the nipple and tighten loose tissue, then evaluate that outcome before making those changes permanent. He compares it to raising the cuff on a pair of trousers, putting a pin in, and asking the client if they like the height before making the cut.

“After releasing those temporary stitches, I can feel confident about the result because now I have a map for reproducing that optimal shape.”