Twin Surgeons Who Give Their Patients a ‘Lift’...

DUBAI - In a milder version of William Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors happening right here in Dubai, clients at a cosmetic surgery clinic come out looking good, but somewhat confused!

Reason: they have just met probably the first identical twin surgeons, who have set up base in Dubai.

“Did we just meet Dr Maurizio or was it Dr Roberto Viel? This is the most common question most of our patients ask,” says 48-year-old Maurizio. “We have never been addressed as ‘doctors’, but always as the ‘twins’.

” The Italian twins setupbase in Dubai Healthcare City in April and are owners of the London Centre for Aesthetic Surgery. However, unlike their appearance, their natures differ.

“My brother, Roberto, is the serious one and I am really easy going. So our patients make their choices after they know us,” explains Maurizio.

“The older ones head to Roberto, while the younger ones come to me,” says Maurizio with tongue-in-cheek humour. “Our father is a businessman, andour mother, an opera singer. They always wanted one of us to become a doctor,” he recalls. But since we have been doing all things together for several years, we both ended up in this profession,” he adds.

Recalling incidents that both brothers still laugh over, Roberto says, “In our childhood, our mother used to label our pictures in the album as ‘M’ and ‘R’ so that our father could know who was who, because even until we were nine, he could not distinguish between us.

” The twins can never recall a time when their teachers did not ask for identification.“We were not allowed to appear for our exams until we showed our IDs,” they say.

Likewise in young age, they say they had their fair share of playing pranks with girls.

“We did confuse them a lot, but also fought over them like any normal teenager would do,” says Maurizio. While Maurizio got married to a Singaporean in April, Roberto already has a vibrant family, comprising an Italian wife and two daughters.

asmaalizain@khaleejtimes.com

• UAE