Profile: Brazilian doctor lands in Maricopa with hopes of a better Tomorrowland

She’s not sure about Obamacare because she left a country with a weak public health system.

“I was really feeling pain for the patients having to wait six months to a year for a CT,” said Dr. Andreia Moraes Acuna. She was “frustrated” she couldn’t give the care and medications she wanted to.

“Everyone has a right to health care, but is the health care really good?”

Still, she said she has faith the U.S. government will get it right.

“It’s a little bit scary, but hopefully it will be a good system that doesn’t limit the doctors from doing what they need to do,” she said.

Acuna’s come to the U.S. and the Drs. Goodman & Partridge Maricopa office by way of Sao Paulo, Brazil and Disneyland. The OB-GYN brings with her an outgoing personality from her Brazilian culture and a keen interest in the high-tech possibilities of U.S. medicine such as robotic surgery.

She met her husband Jason Acuna as she stood in line for a ride in Tomorrowland on Christmas Day and his mother struck up a conversation when she heard her speaking Portuguese. Acuna was still in medical school.

“We immediately became friends, and they invited us for New Year’s,” she said. “Then I went back to Brazil – poor dad had to pay the bills.”

She and her husband came to Arizona two years ago. She was practicing in Chandler and had a few patients from Maricopa.

Jason is manager of Prestige Custom Rides in Mesa, and the couple has 1-year-old Isabella and 4-year-old Giovanni.

Andreia Acuna, who is 38, said she has wanted to be a doctor since she was 4 and playing with dolls using a toy stethoscope when all her cousins were playing with baby dolls. “I just wanted to play doctor and take care of patients.”

She got her medical degree from University of Mogi das Cruzes in Sao Paulo and completed her U.S. residency at Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine at Marshall University in West Virginia in 2010.

From a country where 80 percent of the births are C-sections, the physician said she decided to have two vaginal childbirths. “I do this every day (as a doctor), so I need to have the experience for my patients.”

To her cousins and friends back home she’s “a hero for them” for what she did.

Acuna said she’s interested to practice in the U.S. because of all the medical research and the greater opportunity to do robotic surgeries. She likes surgery in general.

“I just love the surgeries. They are minimally evasive and it’s fun,” she said. “You can remove a big thing with a little instrument, and the recovery time is better.”

The physician said she likes the process of taking care of a patient – from pregnancy to birth. “I like when they come back and show me the baby,” she said.

She likes to interact with patients and “show them they are really important.”

Acuna said she is especially excited to be in Maricopa because she knew of so many people going to Chandler for appointments. She is associated with Chandler Regional Medical Center and Mercy Gilbert Medical Center.