Cesar Victora: leader in child health and development

Abstract

Cesar Victora thought he would be a mathematician or a nuclear physicist until he was 17 years old. But then he left Brazil on a scholarship to study at secondary school in the USA. The year he spent living just outside San Francisco at the tail end of the 1960s altered the course of his life. "It really changed my mind about a lot of things" he said. "It was a very important year in my life." Above all he became interested in environmental issues he said and when he got back to Brazil he thought he would study ecology but there were no courses available. Then he read a book by the medical missionary and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize Albert Schweitzer who had dedicated his life to the health care of impoverished Africans. "I thought maybe thats what I want to do" he said. "I switched from the exact sciences to medicine because I felt I could do something more useful." (excerpt)