Hospital Universitário Cajuru—Curitiba, Brazil

Center description

The Catholic University of Parana medical complex is formed by:

1. Hospital Universitário Cajuru, Catholic University of Parana, is the main hospital of the system. This is one of the main emergencies hospital of a 3.000.000 people area, and Trauma cases are mainly treated at this unit.
2. Hospital Marcelino Champagnat, a state of the art building for private and medical insurance medical care.
3. Hospital Nossa Senhora da Luz, ambulatory center for patient care.
4. Curitiba Spine Center. This is a modern outpatient facility, for conservative and non-invasive therapies, as well as some injections, Discographies and Nucleoplasties. A library and broadband internet helps fellows to keep updated.
   
   

Most frequent pathologies

All spine pathologies

Procedures

524 per year

• Degenerative: 334 per year
• Trauma: 88 per year
• Deformity: 38 per year
• Tumor: 32 per year
• Infection: 32 per year

Fellowship types

Observership, Short-term, Associate Fellow

Language requirements

English, Portuguese, Spanish

Vacancies per year:

Observership: 1 per year
Short Term: 3 per year
Associate fellow: 2 per year

Fellowship Start

Observership: From June to November
Short Term: From March to November
Associate: March (brazilian), July (foreign)

Program Characteristic:

Objectives

To train an orthopedic surgeon in the whole management of the spine pathology.

The fellowship will give to the sub-specialist theoretic concepts and practical skills in the diagnosis and treatment of the spine pathology, with a solid knowledge of basic sciences related to the spine.

Methodology

1.   Clinical practice

• Daily round to hospitalized patients with residents and medical students of the spine unit.
• Clinics with the surgeon-in-charge of the fellowship, twice a week.
• Weekly round with the whole spine unit (5 ortho-spine surgeons)
• Weekly spine unit meeting, where the group reviews the cases done the week before, discusses complex cases and plans the surgery for coming week.
• Programmed surgery: the fellow will participate as assistant in the surgeries of the spine group. Depending on his or her skills and some legal subjects, he or she could also operate some patients, always assisted by the surgeon-in-charge of the fellowship or one of staff spine surgeons.
• Emergency surgery: the fellow will have a cell phone to be call at any time when a case that requires emergency surgery is admitted in the hospital. The fellow will participate in the evaluation of the patient as well as in the surgery, the same as in programmed surgery as assistant or surgeon.

 2.   Research

The fellow will participate in the clinical research of the Spine Unit. The research field at our department is mainly about spinal cord injuries and recovery, at a special laboratory. At the end of the fellowship, at least two papers in which he or she has been participating must be submitted to publication.

3.   Academic

The fellow must prepare at least two revision monographs during his or her fellowship. Those monographs will be programmed to be presented orally in the weekly orthopedic department meeting. They will also be considered for a Master’s degree at the medical school.

4.   Other activities

• For 8 weeks, during the Friday afternoon (1), from 2:00 PM to 6:00 PM the fellow will do a rotation in the MRI unit.
• For 8 weeks, during the Friday afternoon (2) from 2:00 PM to 6:00 PM the fellow will do a rotation with the EMG-specialist of the spine group.

5.   Evaluation

The fellow will be evaluated by spine surgeon-in-charge together with the staff surgeons of the spinal unit, at 6 months and again at the end of the year of the fellowship.

Timetable

Full-time regime Monday to Friday from 7:00 AM to 19:00 PM
Saturday from 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM