Recife Reference Center for Training Young African Neurosurgeons (Portuguese speaking)
The Department of Neurological Surgery is located at the Hospital da Restauração, which is associated with the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Pernambuco, Recife, Brazil.
The Hospital da Restauração lodges about 500 patients and the Department of Neurological Surgery takes care of 180 neurosurgical patients in hospital. Our hospital belongs to the network of the State of Pernambuco Public Health System which in Recife has six hospitals taking care of all areas of medicine.
In 2006 we performed around 2000 neurosurgical procedures. We have from Monday to Friday three operative rooms for elective procedures and another one, 24 hours a day, for emergency cases.
The service is directed by Professor Doctor Hildo Azevedo-Filho and we have nine others faculty members. All faculty members work full time. Three of us hold PhD degrees and the others hold master degrees. Presently, we have in the department two more people reading for a PhD degree and three for mastership.
Our mail research fields are aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage, head and spinal injuries, craniocervical junction abnormalities neuroendoscopy and central nervous system infections.
We house the only residents training program in the northern part of the country, recognized by the Ministry of Education and by the Brazilian Society of Neurosurgery. We receive three residents per year for a program of five years.
In the first year, most of the residents' activities are concentrated in the Department of Neurology. During the second year, their main activities take place in the neurosurgical wards, in the trauma department and in intensive care unit. In the following years they are mostly exposed with activities in the operating rooms, participating in surgical procedures with progressive degrees of complexity.
We have CT and MRI for all patients who need and the two endovascular surgeons, who are permanent members of our team, are increasing every year the number of embolized patients, coiling aneurysms and gluing AVMs. Also in our staff we have a head and neck surgeon and an abdominal surgeon who play a very important role helping the neurosurgeons to better approach neurosurgical pathologies.
We have a strong experience with vascular lesions, brain tumors, neuroendoscopy, spinal and head injuries and pediatric cases. Our functional sector is increasing every year the number of procedures concerning pain, movement disorders and epilepsy.
We have been selected by the WFNS Foundation as International Training Centre and entitled to receive a resident per year to be incorporated to our five-year program which starts every year on February, 1st. At beginning, we are planning to receive young doctors from the Portuguese speaking African countries. This is due the necessity for residents to speak our national language (Portuguese), as well as in this way we can express our gratitude for what people from those countries have so much done for us in the past and helping to build our nation.
The salary will be the same earned by our residents which today is around 800.00 USD (monthly net). We plan to provide accommodation in the hospital but we cannot assure that because we have a limited number of places in the hospital and they are occupied on first come first serve basis. The WFNS will help financially with around 4.000.00 USD yearly.
The applicant please fill out the Online Application Form. Only the online application will be accepted.
I hope that with this commitment the Department of Neurological Surgery of the University of Pernambuco and the Hospital da Restauração are definitely helping the WFNS with its mission and contributing to the development of our specialty in less privileged areas of the world.
Recife 17 June 2007 Hildo Azevedo-Filho MD, PhD, MSc, FRCS(SN) Professor and Chairman of Neurological Surgery Hospital da Restauração University of Pernambuco Rua Senador José Henrique 53 - Ilha do Leite Recife 50070-460 Brazil