Guilherme Henrique Raulino Brasil became known throughout Brazil for a reason no one expected: his own colleagues reported him for treating people without means for free.
He is a dentist and surgeon from Palhoça, in Santa Catarina, and is part of Projeto Leozinho, which operates on children with facial deformities. After complaints were filed with the Regional Council of Dentistry, he began charging a token amount: just 1 real per surgery. According to the material accompanying the story, the council reviewed the case and found no ethical violations.
But his most moving story took place far from home. On a humanitarian mission in Malanje, Angola, he met a baby born with a cleft lip and palate, a deformity that had made feeding difficult. He operated on the baby, and after the procedure, the child was able to drink from a bottle normally again.
To someone looking on from the outside, it may seem like something simple. For his mother, who held him in her arms while feeding him, it meant seeing her son achieve something that had been incredibly difficult for him before. She broke down in tears.
Raulino’s mission includes some 80 complex surgeries in just a few days, and according to him, the local people welcomed them with tremendous affection.