About the Whole Beauty® Institute — Plastic Surgery in Chicago & Winnetka

Dr. John Q. Cook is a board-certified plastic surgeon who has practiced aesthetic plastic surgery in Chicago and Winnetka since 1988 and has been on staff at Rush University Medical Center since 1988. His work concentrates in three areas: facial aesthetic surgery, aesthetic and reconstructive breast surgery, and advanced body contour surgery. A lifelong study of art and aesthetics shapes how he approaches all three.

Dr. Cook is certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery. He completed his undergraduate work at Yale University, earned his medical degree at Northwestern University, and completed residency at Rush Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Medical Center at Rush University. He is a member of The American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, The American Society of Plastic Surgeons, The International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, The Illinois Society of Plastic Surgeons, The Illinois State Medical Society, The Chicago Medical Society, and The Rush Surgical Society, Past President. He is a member of the Rush University Medical Center staff.

It means we build on the structure you already have rather than working toward a standardized ideal. As Dr. Cook puts it, a facelift should make you look more like yourself, not less. In practice, that means we study your own proportions and expressive character before recommending anything, and we restore lost volume alongside any lifting — which is what keeps a result from looking pulled. The aim is that you look rested and like yourself, and your friends can’t quite say why.

Our clinical team includes highly credentialed medical providers and aesthetic clinicians. Every clinician works under Dr. Cook’s direct oversight and to the same aesthetic standard. The Whole Beauty team meets regularly to review current research in aesthetic plastic surgery and medical aesthetics, and attends meetings locally, nationally, and internationally. Many of our patients have worked with the same team members for ten years or more.

We begin with review of your overall health and all medical and surgical aesthetics treatments you have received in the past. We then take a look at your face or body as it is, how it has changed, and discuss your goals for treatment.

For facial consultations, Dr. Cook asks patients to bring photographs from different points in their lives, so he can see the specifics of how you’ve aged rather than generalizing. You’ll have access to an extensive library of before-and-after photographs — far more than what appears on this website. If you’re considering breast implants, we use 3-D imaging and custom implant sizers so you can see how a particular choice would look on you.

A detailed analysis from your consultation will be prepared for by Dr. Cook and the Whole Beauty clinical team which will include a treatment map that outlines possibilities and goals for the next year.

Yes. We offer virtual consultations for patients beginning the process remotely, and we regularly care for patients traveling from outside Illinois. For patients coming from a distance who are having more extensive surgery, we can arrange recovery at The Four Seasons Hotel or any of the surrounding hotels of your choice, connected to the surgical center, with an experienced nurse available during the early stages.

Most patients recover comfortably at home. If you’re having more extensive surgery or traveling from a distance, we can arrange recovery at The Four Seasons Hotel or any of the surrounding hotels of your choice, a hotel connected to the surgical center, where an experienced nurse can help you through the first stage. Whichever setting you’re in, routine safety measures include leg compression devices to reduce the risk of blood clots and IV fluid access.

We offer a wide portfolio of non-surgical treatments, all of which are vetted by Dr. Cook personally. That includes neuromodulators (BOTOX®, Dysport®, Xeomin®), injectable fillers, facial fat transfer, radiofrequency skin tightening and resurfacing, ultrasound skin tightening, body treatments including BodyFX®, and Evolve, laser treatments including the HALO® hybrid fractional laser, MOXI, BBL and IPL. Plus Dermasweep, microneedling, dermaplaning, custom peels, medical grade facial, and more. Everything is available at both the Chicago and Winnetka offices.

Call our Chicago office at (312) 751-2112 or our Winnetka office at (847) 446-7562, or send us a message through the consultation form on this page or our contact page. If you’d prefer to start remotely, ask about a virtual consultation.

Our Chicago office is at 737 North Michigan Avenue, Suite 760, Chicago, IL 60611. The building entrance is at 151 E. Chicago Avenue.

Our Winnetka office is at 118 Green Bay Road, Winnetka, IL 60093, directly across from the Indian Hill Metra station.

The expressive character of your face projects to others your mood and sense of well-being. Our expressions are conveyed by the fundamental position of key expressive zones—such as the brow, the corner of the eye, and the mouth—and the motions of these areas.

Over time, there are several factors that can alter the key expressive zones, so that a face may send a confusing message. Patients may remark that other people tell them they look sad or tired or worried when they are not feeling that way. Habits of expression, such as frowning when in deep concentration or squinting when playing sports outdoors, will over time produce expression lines between the brows and in the crow’s feet area. These habits will also change the position of expressive areas of the face.

As facial structures descend with the aging process, patients develop compensatory habits that produce additional expression lines. For example, as the brows descend with the aging process, most people will subconsciously activate the muscles that lift the brows, which creates horizontal lines across the forehead. Facial structural descent associated with the aging process can also change the set-point of facial expression. As the cheek and jaw border structures drift downward as we age, the corner of the mouth and surrounding contours take on a sad look. One other cause of change in facial expression is volume loss itself. Loss of volume in the temple can change brow position. Loss of volume in the cheek can affect the posture of the mouth and lips.

We can restore your expressive identity at the Whole Beauty^® Institute. We begin the process with a detailed analysis of your face to identify the cause of the changes you experience. We can then provide you with a range of options. Sometimes it is simply a matter of using a neuromodulator such as BOTOX^®, Dysport^®, or Xeomin^® to soften and rebalance the actions of facial muscles. In other cases, volume restoration or tightening of facial structures may contribute to the solution.

At the Whole Beauty^® Institute, we offer our patients a wide selection of treatments to improve facial tone. We will analyze the tone of four key facial regions—the forehead, the cheek, the jaw border, and the neck—as part of the WBI View^™ evaluation process and help you select a treatment that matches your goals.

Many of the milder treatments and products that we offer at the Whole Beauty^® Institute will lead to improvement in facial tone; this may be all that is necessary for the younger patient who is just beginning to notice that the face is not as well-toned as it once was.

The next step in terms of power is the use of advanced radiofrequency devices such as Forma^® to tighten the skin of the face and neck. A series of non-invasive treatments will provide a nice improvement in facial tone. For added power, we often combine these treatments with intense pulsed light and fractional radiofrequency wrinkle reduction (Fractora^®). We were one of the first practices in the Midwest to recognize the potential benefits of radiofrequency skin tightening and skin resurfacing, and our patients benefit from our extensive experience.

FaceTite^® is the most advanced tightening technology that we offer short of surgical lifting. Through a tiny incision a probe is placed under the skin and a second probe is placed on top of the skin. As the surgeon glides the probes through the area of treatment, energy flows between the tips of the probes. This energy tightens the skin in a way that far surpasses what we have seen with previous devices. This technology can work well for many people with mild to moderate looseness, especially in the jaw border and neck areas.

Dr. John Q. Cook often combines the Face Tite^® with other treatments to provide noninvasive facial rejuvenation. Frequently this includes a minimally invasive cheek lift, facial fat transfer, the Halo^® hybrid fractional laser, and intense pulsed light. These state-of-the-art procedures combined with Dr. Cook’s cultivated visual aesthetic provide substantial benefits to our patients.

For the most powerful and long-lasting results, there is no substitute for surgical lifting, an area where Dr. Cook has long been a recognized leader. He has developed techniques that address the key zones of facial aging in a highly natural way. Many of these procedures can be done with the patient under local anesthesia, as desired.

The aging process, sun, and stress change the character of the skin’s surface in undesirable ways. Pigment may become uneven, tiny vessels may appear, the skin becomes thinner, and the surface becomes dull. Wrinkles and rough patches appear on the skin as well.

Our highly experienced aesthetics team will help you design a program to correct problems with the skin’s surface. We can present you with a plan that will map the rejuvenation process over the next year. The technology that measures skin abnormalities as part of the WBI View^™ evaluation process can also measure and show you your progress over time.

We offer our patients the Whole Beauty^® line of medical-grade skin care products, carefully designed by Dr. Cook and consistent with his principles of product formulation. Our flagship product WBR3 addresses the “3 Rs” of skin restoration: replenish water content, restore the protective barrier, and rejuvenate the skin without harsh retinoids.

Patients amplify the benefits of our product line with our portfolio of treatments available in our Chicago and Winnetka offices. Our leadership-level team will deliver individualized combinations of treatments that will restore your skin to optimum appearance and function. Our advanced portfolio of treatments includes custom skin peels, micro channeling/microneedling, dermaplaning, fractional radiofrequency, laser treatments with enhanced product delivery, IPL, BBL, Halo^® hybrid fractional laser, HydraFacial^®, oxygen facials, and medical-grade microdermabrasion.