Silicone valley on the streets of Rio

Brazil is not only famous for its soccer team. Sathnam Sanghera meets pioneering plastic surgeon Ivo Pitanguy, the country’s most celebrated person after Pelé.

IT’S 10 o’clock on a Wednesday morning and I am being guided by a doctor through a series of sweltering corridors in Rio’s Santa Casa de Misericórdia hospital, one of the oldest medical facilities in South America. Brazil may have access to healthcare enshrined in its constitution, but walking around this building, once a convent, it is clear why the middle classes generally tend to avoid the national health system: the infrastructure is dilapidated, the queues long, and, from my brief observations, the hygiene really quite questionable.

However, the atmosphere at our ultimate destination, a lecture theatre in the 38th ward, is rather different. On stage, the professor in charge, a small man in his 80s, is making animated conversation with a prospective patient, a woman in her late 40s. A dozen or so trainee surgeons, from as far afield as the Dominican Republic, Lebanon and Britain, listen intently, occasionally laughing along. The overall vibe is that of a TV chat show.