Dr. Jennifer
Walden
Building a Legacy as a 6th Generation Austinite BY RUDY ARISPE
“FIRST AND FOREMOST, I’M A MOTHER, AN ENTREPRENEUR, A BUSINESSWOMAN AND I’M A PLASTIC SURGEON”
D
r. Jennifer Walden says when asked to describe herself.
The Austin native, who has appeared in Texas Monthly, Vogue and on national TV networks, such as NBC, CBS and Fox News, is also the owner of a busy surgical practice, Walden Cosmetic Surgery & Laser Center, along with The MedSpa at Westlake in South Austin and the soon-to-open MedSpa at NW Hills in North Austin. And despite an eight-year stint working in the Big Apple, it wasn’t long before her heart yearned to return to her Texas roots. “Patients always ask if I’m a native Austinite because they read about it. Then they tell me I’m a rare unicorn”. Descended from pioneers who settled on Bull Creek in the 1850s, Dr. Walden relates her family history in
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Texas: “On my father’s side of the family, they migrated here in the mid-1800s. We’re sixth-generation Austinites; we bought 160 acres on Bull Creek for $2 an acre and sold it in 1960.” She adds, “I wish they hadn’t have sold it! But
who knew Austin would become the boomtown it did?” Dr. Walden also possesses another skill that surgeons sometimes have that her patients find interesting.