“Almost Invisible Scars”: Medical Tourism to Brazil

Abstract

Along with a handful of other nations in the developing world, Brazil has emerged as a top destination for medical tourism. Drawing on the author's ethnographic fieldwork in plastic surgery wards, this article examines diverse factors - some explicitly promoted in medical marketing and news sources, others less visible - contributing to Brazil's international reputation for excellence in cosmetic plastic surgery. Brazil's plastic surgery residency programs, some of which are housed within its public health system, attract overseas surgeons, provide ample opportunities for valuable training in cosmetic techniques, and create a clinical environment that favors experimentation with innovative techniques. Many graduates of these programs open private clinics that, in turn, attract overseas patients. High demand for Brazilian plastic surgery also reflects an expansive notion of female health that includes sexual realization, mental health, and cosmetic techniques that manage reproduction. Medical tourism is sometimes represented as being market-driven: patients in wealthier nations travel to obtain quality services at lower prices. This article ends by reflecting on how more complex local and transnational dynamics also contribute to demand for elective medical procedures such as cosmetic surgery.

Spaces of connectivity: The formation of medical travel destinations in Delhi National Capital Region (India)

“…The ultimate goal is economic‐commercial, that is, to increase profits (Reddy and Qadeer, ), and/or economic‐political, that is, to modernise the country and renegotiate its position in the world order (Wilson, ). Accordingly, the ‘ability of hospitals in developing countries to attract medical tourists’ – especially those living in industrialised countries – has been celebrated as a national achievement (Edmonds, : 297f.). Patients travelling from, for instance, the UK to India actualise the destination's connectivity and hence constitute embodied proof of India having become a ‘modern’ medical travel destination.…”

Entre saúde e aprimoramento: a engenharia do corpo por meio de cirurgias plásticas e terapias hormonais no Brasil

“…Muitos cirurgiões residentes saem de seus países de origem para treinar em alas de hospitais brasileiros as técnicas de cirurgia plástica, atraídos pela oportunidade de ter experiência prática em técnicas estéticas (Edmonds, 2011). Um residente europeu disse que havia realizado 96 cirurgias em seu terceiro ano de residência, das quais 90% eram estéticas.…”

O Brasil na literatura internacional de turismo: análise das publicações em idioma inglês

“…Lima & d'Hauteserre, 2011;Ruschmann, 1992;Wallace & Pierce, 1996;Wight, 1993;Zanotti & Chernela, 2008). No entanto, diversos outros segmentos também foram estudados, incluindo turismo social (Almeida, 2011), turismo de aventura (Carnicelli-Filho, Schwartz, & Tahara, 2010), turismo médico (Edmonds, 2011), geoturismo (Moreira & Bigarella, 2010), enoturismo (Leal & Almeida, 2014), turismo de mineração (Flecha, Knupp, Lohmann, & Liccardo, 2011), turismo rodoviário (Lohmann, Santos, & Allis, 2011), turismo mochileiro (C. Rodrigues & Prideaux, 2012;C. B. Rodrigues & Prideaux, 2014), turismo sexual (Bandyopadhyay & Nascimento, 2010;Mitchell, 2011;Moital & Gândara, 2012) e turismo em favelas (FreireMedeiros, 2009;Frisch, 2012;Jaguaribe & Hetherington, 2004;Rolfes, 2010).…”