1933
The idea of two young physicians, Genival Londres and Aluísio Marques, Sanatório São Vicente was created to receive patients with a psychiatric profile, cardiologic and geriatric diseases and other treatments that demanded a long period of resting. It received this name, because its first facilities were located in a big house at the corner of Marquês de São Vicente and Adolfo Lutz streets in Gávea, the Southern Zone of Rio de Janeiro – a calm area, privileged by nature, ideal to facilitate the recovery of the ill. The only event that made Gávea a world famous place was the Grand Prix locally called “corrida de baratinhas”, the predecessor of the Current Formula 1 race cars with the Devils Trampoline and racers Farina, Pintacuda, Villoresi and our own Chico Landi. After the descent from the Dois Irmãos Mountain, where Rocinha Slum is currently located, they would drive down Marques de São Vicente at high speeds.

1942
Sanatório São Vicente quickly gained the respect of physicians and patients and the demand increased gradually, making it necessary to expand capacity. Less than ten years after it was opened, an Initial Public Offering was announced to build a new building; at that time the former sanatorium was renamed to Clínica de Repouso São Vicente. One of the new partners, João Borges Filho, transferred land he owned to be used for the new construction that lasted seven years.

November 12 1949
The inauguration of the new facilities was a medical and social event, attended by the President of the Republic at that time: Eurico Gaspar Dutra, the Mayor of what was then the Federal District, Ângelo Mendes de Morais, and other authorities. The modern headquarters, with a clinical analysis laboratory, electrocardiogram and X-ray equipment, already indicated the pioneer approach that would accompany many future steps of Clínica São Vicente: it was the first private health care centre in Latin America to implement a medicinal gas pipeline (including oxygen and compressed air), that allowed them to reach the beds without the need of having canisters inside the patient’s rooms.

July 1966
Legal requirements made it mandatory to have a Technical Person in Charge. Dr. Luiz Roberto Londres was apportioned for this position. A recent graduate from the National School of Medicine (Faculdade Nacional de Medicina) of the University of Brazil – as the Federal University was called at that time. The natural tendency of making patients feel welcome and not only rendering medical services becomes very clear with the implementation of the Medicine for People. A good example is the guide that is handed to the patients upon hospitalization, written by Roberto Menna Barreto from which we have copied some sections.

Patient Orientation Guide - 1966 (by Roberto Menna Barreto)
“You have arrived – and we hope that you have had the best impression of us starting at the gardens by the entrance. We must confess right from the start, that despite the fact that we might not know each other that well (only time will allow that), we are greatly pleased. ...”.
“Have you seen the symbol used by the clinic? It is a heart. Red and nicely made as seen on Valentine ’s Day. It suggests the cardiology services that we are specialized in, but we also hope it suggests the idea of sympathy, friendship and caring, in which we are likewise specialized in”...
”Ask for everything you need, complain whenever you think it is fair to do so, you may do it in writing if preferred”...”As a medical clinic, there are obviously many things that are not allowed in this house. But most of them – we must confess – not even we take that seriously”...
“You might find it strange that such a famous clinic (pardon our lack of modesty) as ours is, has this home-like environment and not something sophisticated. Some people have told us we should change this, but we haven’t. We like things this way. That does not stop you from meeting at lunch or in the library very important people, very well known outside (we have even had a President once). But do not pay attention to them. They receive the same attention and care that you receive from us”.

1968
This is the year a new director arrives at Clínica de Repouso São Vicente, the one who would be a great motivator and who would make it possible to change the resting clinic into a general hospital; he was Portuguese from Madeira Island, had worked with Edgar Mário Berger while transforming the Resting House Dr. White into the Silvestre Hospital, making it a reference hospital in Rio de Janeiro.
Manuel Carlos Nunes brought real professionalism to a homelike institution during his administration. He was responsible for structuring the adequate basis to allow the qualitative leap in all support sectors, such as accounting, finance and human resources, and also launched the basis of a nursing sector that was appropriate for the new times.
Some characteristics of Carlos Nunes, as he was known, that made him unique in the history of Clínica São Vicente is that he:
Never presented problems; but situations with solutions.
Never was loud or depressed; had a constant mood.
Never was fixed to a fact, but to all circumstances.
Never forgot to consider people as people.
Never distanced himself from a gracefully ethical and moral behaviour.
Never created animosity among his colleagues.

His administrative work allowed Luiz Roberto Londres, who still practiced medicine to contact different professional, mainly surgeons to project the future hospital. By hiring an architect, Rolf Werner Hutter the ideas quickly took shape and the shapes triggered the construction.

In this same year, the first and modest Coronary Unit in Rio de Janeiro is set-up, it includes two monitored beds and a defibrillator and cardioversion equipment, connected to the floor’s Nursing Centre.

1970
In a very short period of time, only nine months of work under the supervision of Rolf Hutter and constructor Rafael Borges Dutra, a very modern hospital for the time appears. A Surgery Centre with four rooms, a sterilization room and changing rooms, a fully equipped Radiology Centre and many refurbished rooms.

September of the same year was when surgeries began: Antonio Luiz Medina, Geraldo Terreri, Urbano Fabrini and Ivan Lemgruber were our pioneers during that phase. But still during the construction, a child was born on July 31, much sooner than we thought of having a maternity.

1971
On January 4 Dr. Fernando Paulino sent collaborators to increase the quality of the new hospital. On the 19th his first surgery is performed. He brought reputation, trust, recognition and “instant tradition”. His demands and total inflexibility regarding the technical conditions and ethics were excessively known. His name endorsed the newly born institution.

1972
On October 18, surgeon Fernando Paulino inaugurated the Genival Londres Study Centre, another step towards transforming the former resting home into a modern hospital, with a scientific characteristic and with the conditions to offer training and to keep the physicians up-to-date. The legal entity was changed to Genival Londres Study and Research Centre on October 27 1980 and four years later, on February 10 1987, the Study Centre was recognized as a Public Utility entity as per a presidential decree.
In this same year, the name of Clínica de Repouso São Vicente was changed to Clínica São Vicente as suggested by professional physicians who demanded the change that should have already been made. Well before mandatory by law, Clínica São Vicente implemented the Hospital Infection Control Committee (CCIH), with the objective of creating actions to prevent and control these infections

1975
New modernization work took place and included building more apartments, installing the maternity with the nursery, creating the ICU with six beds, four of them intensive care and two semi-intensive, and updating the radiology equipment.

1977 and 1978
Two important inaugurations: an Intensive Care Unit for newly born and a full body computerized tomography, both pioneers in our city. Since then technology updates became a constant.

1980s
In 1980, Clínica São Vicente was a pioneer in offering within a private hospital a clinical medical residency, under the guidance and supervision of Dr. Félix Roberto Zyngier. In 1984 with the entrance of doctors Alberto Coutinho Filho and Francisco Campana, the Radiotherapy Centre was inaugurated.

1990s
A time of strong transformation after a relatively slow decade, reflecting the financial crisis that affected our country. The constant transformation started to be guided by international quality standards. Facilities and services were re-adapted to meet the new criteria.

A new Intensive Care Centre, expanding the Surgical Centre, refurbishing the rooms, refurbishing the reception and hospitalization unit and inaugurating the Emergency Semi-Intensive and the cardiology units. This was also the decade in which the Emergency Service was inaugurated following very current parameters with physicians trained in the ATLS (Advanced Trauma Life Support) system.

In 1997, after an absolute record time (10 months) Clínica São Vicente was the first hospital of the entire Americas to be accredited with ISO 9002.

2000 - 2006
During this year, in order to expand intensive activities, with great anguish we had to stop the obstetrician activities closing the maternity that was undoubtedly a unique reference.

2003
A new concept in closed intensive care units that allow combining the advancements in biologic care to maintaining the psychological and social care. The Cardiac Intensive Care Unit (CICU), also known as the Heart Unit, was inaugurated especially for patients with severe heart diseases who needed intensive surveillance. The CICU has three beds with intensive care support and six beds with hemodynamic monitoring. In them the patient has more privacy and can enjoy the company of a family member.

2004
A partnership with diagnostics company Diagnósticos da América (DASA), a highly esteemed institution in our country and the sixth largest in the world, made it possible for Clínica São Vicente to offer the most modern and recent services in complementary exams.

2005
Still following the concept of aligning biological care advances with maintaining psychological and social care in the closed units, we inaugurated the Intensive Care Unit 2, designed in such a way as to make intensive treatment cause the least interference in the patient’s family life. The psychosocial aspect is taken into account both regarding the biological and the physicochemical aspects.

2006 - 2009
The diagnostic centre at Clínica São Vicente has been fully updated with last generation equipment. These devices grant more comfort and safety as they significantly reduce the duration of the exams, which in most cases are done in a few minutes and with a high resolution diagnosis, which in a medical emergency might be decisive when making decisions.

The Cellular Therapy Program was launched, coordinated by Haematologist and Oncologist Dr. Daniel Tabak. This is the first in a private hospital in Rio de Janeiro. The program started with the expansion of autologous transplants (cells collected and transplanted to the same patient), offered also to patients with autoimmune conditions.

A special unit for Intensive Care for patients with burn problems was inaugurated in 2007, the first private unit in South-east Brazil. In the year of 2008 Clínica São Vicente commemorated its 75 years of existence. During this year was started a general reform. The work includes new painting of the front, modernization of the Surgical Centre and of the rooms and suites.

Human Capital – the great art
The history you have learnt, the one that is always being developed, based on a pioneer approach, innovation, technology, science and mainly much art, is the result of what was always the main asset of Clínica São Vicente: its human capital, those who have helped to build the institution’s character, and to whom we must eternally dedicate out existence. It is impossible to quantify the honour we feel of having lived with medical personalities such as the long gone surgeons Fernando Paulino, Jesse Teixeira, Paulo Albuquerque, Geraldo Terreri, Vitor Araújo Lima, Ivan Lemgruber; and general practitioners Edmundo Blundi, Mário Miranda, Bernardo Couto, Abrão Akerman, Weber Pimenta Bueno among so many others.

For those who are still in practice, we prefer to not mention all the professionals who honour us with their presence, and to name one as the representative for all Dean Professor Sérgio Novis, he can certainly represent this group with excellence that is accountable for making Clínica São Vicente renown.