This question was posed by a future medical student: I’m entering med school this fall, and women’s health and REI is a great interest of mine due to personal and familial reasons. Once you completed your Ob gyn residency, how difficult was it to enter into the REI fellowship? How long was the fellowship? I’ve [...]

I recently completed an interview for a medical student website, after which I asked them not to use my real name in keeping with how I don’t have my real name on this blog. My reason for the anonymity, as many of you know, is a minor one. I do have another website for my [...]

The morning started out terribly. One of our favorite patients had a miscarriage confirmed. There had been a heartbeat seen on their last ultrasound, but there was none today. As the patient herself admitted, it didn’t come as that much of a surprise, because she had been bleeding, her hCG levels had not been rising [...]

I went for a one-day trip this weekend to catch part of the 2008 meeting of the Pacific Coast Reproductive Society. Those of us who do IVF have many meetings we can attend where we can exchange ideas with each other. For, example, this year, ESHRE is meeting in Barcelona. I’ve never been to ESHRE, [...]

This morning, I got a call from a pharmacist from a fertility pharmacy which supplies our patients with their medications. As much as my staff tried to triage the call, he refused to divulge any information to them and insisted on talking directly to me only. When I finally took his call, he informed me [...]

I have nicknamed Andrea, one of my medical assistants, "The Empath".  Before most of us were born, the original old old Star Trek series had an episode about a mysterious mute woman from another world. She had the power to absorb other people’s pain and injuries and transfer them to herself. She alleviated their suffering [...]

Last week, Spring arrived. Those of you who have been basking in the sunlight, enjoying the smell of cut grass and daffodils while planting next year’s azaleas will appreciate my comparison of planting flowers with doing In-Vitro-Fertilization. What makes for a successful planting of flowers? Three things. You need good soil. You need healthy bulbs [...]

Today is the day that about 35000 medical students around the country find out what the rest of their lives are going to be like. Sort of. This morning, these graduating medical students were notified of which specialties they will be going into and at which program they will be working geographically for the next [...]

Honestly, I have a whole load of stories from this past particularly-busy week. However, I’m realizing, to no surprise, that many of my actual patients read this blog and as such, I have to respect commenting on some sensitive stories even if their identity is completely shielded. I’ve written some notes for myself, but I [...]