Ivo Pitanguy

Ivo Pitanguy is famous throughout the world, but in his native Brazil, he remains legend, eclipsed in public recognition only by Pelé, the soccer god. That a plastic surgeon could reach this level of renown says something about the Brazilian worship of physical beauty and, of course, Pitanguy’s knack with the knife, for which he’s been dubbed “the Michelangelo of the scalpel.” But the doctor clearly possesses other, more subtle qualities as well. “Pitanguiser,” a word coined in the local Portuguese dialect, translates as “human charisma, intelligence, and compassion.”