He stood out more than he hoped for when he put up an ad billboard depicting a nude woman - plastic surgeon Luiz Fernando Dacosta's billboard triggered a controversy over medical ethics.
``I can't understand what they are so upset about,'' Dacosta tells Reuters of the local doctor's group questioning whether the billboard equals ethical publicity. ``The woman on the poster is not showing explicit sex. She shows off well the perfect lines of the human body which is the major goal of plastic surgery.''
The backlit billboard is said to have been the gift of a happy husband whose wife underwent surgery by Dacosta. It shows a nude model in a sensual pose, with the caption, "The Art of Plastic Surgery," and Dacosta's name, address, and telephone number.
Dacosta put the billboard up early last month and plans to keep it in place another two to three months before he replaces it with one about science and surgery in the next millennium, Reuters says.
The Regional Council of Medicine was not amused by the nude billboard. They're investigating whether the billboard violates medical publicity rules. Doctors in Brazil, Reuters says, are banned from using before and after photographs to display their work or exaggerating claims about their skills.
"Doctors have an obligation to be moderate, and he was not," says Dr. Mario Jorge Noronha to Reuters. "(It) exposes the whole medical establishment to ridicule."
