Plastics.
Here’s a fact that you might not have known about Argentina: it is estimated that 1 in 30 Argentines have had some sort of cirugía plástica (plastic surgery). Which makes the cirujanos Argentinos (Argentine surgeons) some of the most experienced in the world. Many thanks to the economic collapse of 2001, the Argentine peso is not particularly strong against the American dollar (it used to be 1USD = 1ARS, but is now about 1USD = 3.8ARS), which means that the cost of cirugía plástica is significantly less than in the United States and other Western nations. So, as you can imagine, a huge attraction for tourism in South America in general is what they like to call ‘medical tourism’. Oh, what has our world come to..?!
Image taken from thaindian.com
So why are we all of a sudden talking about cirugía plástica? It just so happens that this past Sunday, Solange Magnano, the Miss Argentina from 1994 who was also a top model, died while in cirugía. More specifically, elective cirugía on her buttocks.
It came as a big shock to a lot of people, especially considering she was scheduled to have a runway show coming up this month. Not to mention people go under the knife in Argentina all the time, so going in for surgery, surely no one was expecting her to not make it through. Unfortunately, she was the mother of 7-year old twins that are left to live with their now-single dad.
For the sake of all things medical, here’s a few useful terms:
médico = doctor
cita = appointment
cirugía = surgery
obras sociales/ medicina prepagada = health insurance
enfermera = nurse
consultorio = doctor’s office
To read a bit more on the death of Solange Magnon’s death and this ever-growing trend of plastic surgery in Argentina, visit this article by CNN.
Here at Bueno, entonces… we know that in addition to learning Spanish, it is important to know what’s going on in the Spanish-speaking world - what good is language if you have nothing to talk about? We also made our program with that in mind: it needs to be relevant and the Spanish needs to be the Spanish that natives speak. You can check out more clips from each Spanish class on Youtube, or become a fan on our Facebook Page and learn some useful Spanish phrases.
It’s sad to hear tragedies like this. You make a useful suggestion that patients should always research the procedures and surgeons before going under the knife, whether it’s cosmetic surgery or life-saving procedures.