After medical school and internship, I completed basic surgical training and obtained the intercollegiate Membership of The Royal College of Surgeons (MRCS) in Edinburgh. As fate would have it, synchronous events led to a visit to the Ivo Pitanguy’s plastic surgery department in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which at that time was one of the top plastic surgery units in the world. I completed my residency at the 38th Infirmary Department of Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery at the Santa Casa Misericordia General Hospital in Rio de Janeiro directly under the renowned Professor Ivo Pitanguy, considered one of the founding fathers of plastic surgery from 2012 to 2016.

After residency, I completed accredited international clinical fellowships in Craniofacial Surgery and Reconstructive Microsurgery spanning 2 years in Asia and Europe.

To me there is no distinction between purely reconstructive or purely aesthetic surgery. This was the ethos of Prof Ivo Pitanguy where even poor patients had a right to beauty as we routinely performed aesthetic surgery for the underprivileged for low cost and for many cases for free. Hence alongside all the reconstructive work that we perform including burns, cleft deformities, hand surgery and trauma; aesthetic surgery was given equal importance in our service in Brazil. I continue to adhere to this philosophy in my surgical practice.

The main focus of my private practice currently is rooted in aesthetic surgery. I  perform all aspects of aesthetic surgery of the face and body, from eyelid surgeries, rhinoplasties, facelifts, fat grafting to breast implants, tummy tucks and liposuction. I maintain a robust interest in cleft and craniofacial surgery which remains my reconstructive focus. I am a credentialed cleft surgeon and routinely undertake repair of cleft deformities of the lip and palate.

I find the cross pollination of ideas in aesthetic and reconstructive surgery and its application to both fields to be immensely satisfying. My broad training in Brazil, Europe and Asia provided me with a conceptual understanding on Western and Eastern ideals of beauty in aesthetic surgery.