Beautiful bodies on the sand. Those are the very first things that come to mind when anyone utters the word Brazil. Followed by thoughts of the beautifully tanned women in bikinis that line the beaches, the cold drinks with umbrellas in them being passed around, and a holistic sense of absolute tropical bliss.
These are just some of the images of Brazil that serve as the selling point of their tourism industry. Taking up the majority of South America, the country is home to the infamous Rio de Janeiro Carnaval, the local football culture, the energetic and vibrating music of the samba, and plenty of other tourist attractions that make people prefer Brazil as a tourism destination.
Brazil is, by far, the largest Latin American Nation, housing 186 million people within its borders. It was named after the Brazil wood, a tree that was highly prized by early conquerors. Possessing vast fertile agricultural lands, rain forests, other natural resources and a vast labor workforce, Brazil has now become the most economically powerful in South America, and is a leader in that region.
Brazil is also a good place for tourists who are after one rather specific goal: cheap and efficient medical services. Medical tourism involves the propensity of individuals to travel abroad in order to obtain health care. On the reverse side of the coin, health workers living in countries where health services are cheaper and more easily accessible offer their services to the willing tourists.
In short, medical tourism health care ranges from medical surgeries, psychiatry and alternative treatments. Elective surgeries such as dental surgeries and cosmetic surgeries are quite normal in these medical vacation destinations, and Brazil is one of them. In fact, Brazil is especially known for its local cosmetic surgery industry.
What makes Brazil a tourist destination is the promising offer its local medical environment advertises. This includes the country’s capability to provide low-cost, world-class medical tourism treatment thanks to the devaluation of the Real, which is Brazil’s currency, against the value of our US dollar. Hence, Brazil is rather famous for, sometimes infamously so, list of cosmetic surgery and plastic surgery clinics, and equally prominent list of wealthy clients who go there to undergo surgical operations on the sly.
It could also be said that Brazil is home to some of the best hospitals in the world. The privately owned health institutions, to be precise, is the operating center of well-reputed plastic surgeons.
A physician’s training in Brazil is tough. After graduating from medical school, and before beginning his practice, the average Brazilian physician must first undergo medical residency based on their specialization. This is followed by a presentation to the board of medical examiners of the Brazilian Federal Council of Medicine (Conselho Federal de Medicina), the Brazilian licensing and professional regulatory body for medicine. This governing body will then decide on whether to give the doctor in training a certification of practice.
Some of these doctors, however, have actually been trained in US Institutions, and have received certification from the American Board of Plastic Surgery. Some are even members of American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons.
Most of Brazil’s private surgeons—and some leading hospitals—who enter the medical tourism market gradually shift their career paths to cater to the needs of the medical tourism industry. And the clientele has diversified from the run-of-the-mill American patient: tourists hailing from the Middle East have formed a large Arab community in Brazil.
Once of the things that the wary medical tourist might consider is the fact that, though medical procedures cost in Brazil might be lower than in the United States, other medical tourism destinations such as Thailand and India provide cheaper services of the kind. But Brazil boasts one of the world’s best plastic surgery industries, and Americans have often chosen Brazil as their cosmetic destination—usually because of the fact that the location is only eight to twelve hours away.