Study Abroad, Curitiba Brazil CAIF

First things first let me give you a little background information on the extent of my travels outside of the U.S.A. before I went on my study abroad trip to Curitiba, Brazil.  I had never been out of the country with the exception of an afternoon spent in Tijuana when I was very young and vacationing in California with my family.  Needless to say, my trip to Brazil opened my eyes to a whole new world.   Our study abroad trip was part of a summer elective class at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point.  It was a whirlwind of a trip, lasting only 10 days.  However, in those 10 days I learned more about the care of patients with cleft palate and craniofacial anomalies than I did in the 6 years I spent studying speech and language pathology in college. The information I am going to pass on to you is the information that I was provided when I studied abroad at CAIF in the summer of 2012.  CAIF has a facebook page, check itout here!  The page is in Portuguese, but they have fabulous photos! 

We spent our academically-focused time at The Centro de Atendimento  Integral ao Fissurado Labio-Palatal (CAIF) in English means “Center for the Integral Care of Patients with Cleft Lip/Palate”.  AFFISUR is the Associaicao de reabilitacao e promocao social ao fissurado labio-palatal, or in English, “Association for The Rehabilitation and Social Promotion of Patients with Cleft Lip/Palate”.  The mission of CAIF is “to promote congenital craniofacial deformities interdisciplinary treatment and to enable both the aesthetic and functional rehabilition and (re)inclusion of patients into society.”  Their vision is “to be a reference center for face and/or skill deformities, through the partnership with public, private and civil society, for the maintenance of the multidisciplinary service offered.” This post is going to provide you with some more in depth information on CAIF/AFISSUR.

CAIF was created in 1992 by the Parana’s health state Department and in 1993 they joined forces with AFFISSUR.  In the 20 years they have been open 8,265 patients have received services through CAIF. Each month an average of 40 new patients arrive at CAIF to be treated.  The teamwork I witnessed at CAIF was the true definition of an interdisciplinary treatment.

The CAIF team consists of a variety of doctors, dentists, other professionals, and technical support team members.  The different types of doctors include; craniofacial surgeon, corrective plastic surgeon, ENT, anesthetist, neurosurgeon, pediatrician, general practitioner and geneticist.  The dentists include; bucomaxillofacial surgeon, orthodontist, general practitioner, dentist, odontopediatrician, endodontist, and periodontist. The other professionals include; speech therapist, psychologist, social worker, nurse, and remedial help teacher.  A combination of these types of professionals and the technical support team includes 59 total employees at CAIF.  Professionals from all over the world have come to train at CAIF seeking information on congenital craniofacial deformities interdisciplinary treatment.

At CAIF they see an average of 103 patients per day.   Patients are scheduled to see different specialties in the same day to help reduce travel expenses and time for families that travel a long ways to come to CAIF.  Patients at CAIF are often seen shortly after birth through adulthood depending on their condition.  Some patients do not come in until later in life due a lack of knowledge about the center or an inability to make the trip. Brazil has a public health care system.   Many of the doctors who work at CAIF also work one or two other jobs. They also don’t have the same types of HIPPA laws or attitudes about privacy that we do here in the United States.  For example, patients weren’t notified that we would be observing their doctor appointments until they walked into the clinic that day.  Of course the doctors asked their permission, but we did not run into one parent/patient all week that had a problem with us being there.  They all appeared very comfortable with us being in the rooms during appointments and they were all very kind.  Several of them were interested in talking to us, just like we were interested in talking to them.