Ivo Hélcio Jardim de Campos Pitanguy (July 5, 1926 – August 6, 2016) was a plastic surgeon based in

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...

. Pitanguy studied at the Bethesda North Hospital in

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

, where he worked with John Longacre. Soon after, Pitanguy went to France and England where he studied plastic surgery. In 1953 he began working at a Brazilian hospital. On December 17, 1961, a burning circus tent fell on 2,500 spectators in the Brazilian city of

Niterói Niterói (, ) is a Municipalities of Brazil, municipality of the state of Rio de Janeiro (state), Rio de Janeiro in the Southeast Region, Brazil, southeast region of Brazil. It lies across Guanabara Bay facing the city of Rio de Janeiro and forms ...

. Pitanguy treated burn victims for weeks on an emergency basis. He later referred to the event as life changing, as it taught him that for many, physical appearance was critical to living. Pitanguy founded a private clinic called ''Clínica Ivo Pitanguy'' in the

Botafogo Botafogo (local/standard alternative Brazilian Portuguese pronunciation: ) is a beachfront neighborhood (''bairro'') in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It is a mostly upper middle class and small commerce community, and is located between the hills of M ...

section of Rio de Janeiro where he operated on clients and trained surgeons. Pitanguy was also a

philanthropist Philanthropy is a form of altruism that consists of "private initiatives, for the Public good (economics), public good, focusing on quality of life". Philanthropy contrasts with business initiatives, which are private initiatives for private goo ...

. He renovated a ward at the public Santa Casa da Misericórdia Hospital in Rio where, for four decades, he offered free treatment. Pitanguy was a member of the

Academia Brasileira de Letras The Academia Brasileira de Letras (ABL) ( English: ''Brazilian Academy of Letters'') is a Brazilian literature, literary non-profit society established at the end of the 19th century. The first president, Machado de Assis, declared its found ...

and of the

Academia Nacional de Medicina The Academia Nacional de Medicina (ANM) is the Brazilian national academy of medicine. The academy was founded during the Brazilian imperial period on 30 June 1829, under the name of ''Sociedade de Medicina do Rio de Janeiro''. On 8 May ...

. The Pitanguy clinic in Rio also includes an auditorium and library for Pitanguy's lectures and writings for medical students. He died one day after carrying the Olympic flame in his wheelchair, ahead of the Rio 2016 Olympic games.

Notable patients

Pitanguy treated well-known patients, such as the former F1 race driver Niki Lauda, the former prime minister of Italy and media tycoon

Silvio Berlusconi Silvio Berlusconi ( ; ; born 29 September 1936) is an Italian media tycoon and politician who served as Prime Minister of Italy in four governments from 1994 to 1995, 2001 to 2006 and 2008 to 2011. He was a member of the Chamber of Deputies ...

as well as the revolutionary

Muammar Gaddafi Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi, . Due to the lack of standardization of transcribing written and regionally pronounced Arabic, Gaddafi's name has been romanized in various ways. A 1986 column by ''The Straight Dope'' lists 32 spellin ...

Notable patients

References

Further reading