Egg Hunters

Making babies goes high-tech

published in DukeMed, Fall/Winter 2005. Download PDF file here.

Even now, Debbie Greer can’t help but visit the infertility message boards online. Nowhere is there quite so much hope and love mingled with such heartache and desperation. It flows out from the multitude of acronyms and abbreviations: IVF, ICSI, BFP. It blinks passionately from emoticons that flash smiling icons and sobbing symbols. There are women here who suffer from polycystic ovary syndrome, women whose husbands have severe male factor infertility, women who speak of egg retrieval and follicles and embryo transfers with the familiarity of a scientist. Women who have tried every assisted reproductive technology available, over and over again, for as many as 11 years.

Only a few months ago, Greer was one of those women, and like a member of some secret society, she continues to read the message boards to remind herself how fragile the journey from infertility to parenthood is. Because in July, she became one of the lucky ones. After undergoing in vitro fertilization at the Duke Reproductive Endocrinology and Fertility division, she received what she had wanted for more than four years: a BFP-Big Fat Positive pregnancy test.

Mixing Faith and Science

Published in DukeMed, December 2005

(Sidebar to “Egg Hunters“)

Rarely do you see a physician wear his religion on his sleeve. But David Walmer, MD, PhD, wears his quite literally around his neck, in the form of a green, gold, and maroon tie patterned with crosses, fish, and the word “faith.” As chief of the Duke Reproductive Endocrinology and Fertility division, Walmer knows his attire is not only a revelation of his character, but an outward symbol of what anyone–Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or agnostic–must possess to face the emotional and physical roller coaster of infertility treatment.

You have to believe, deeply, to go through these procedures–if not in God, then in science. Walmer happens to believe in both. For many of his patients, that’s a welcome fact. In fact, not only do more patients keep the dialogue on faith open with him through their medical journeys than not, many couples specifically come to Duke to see Walmer because of his Christian-focused practice. Many ask Walmer to pray with them before embryo transplants. Some just want the knowledge that they are cared for by a physician who unabashedly shares their faith. Others seek advice on reconciling the ethical issues that abound in assisted reproductive technology (ART) with their intense desire to begin a family.

One Small Step for Fertility …

Published in DukeMed, December 2005

(Sidebar to “Egg Hunters“)

Tucked inside his lab in the Alex H. Sands Medical Building on the Duke campus, Thomas Price, MD, of the Duke Reproductive Endocrinology and Fertility division, is so engrossed in his research that he can barely stop to talk. That’s with good reason: Price is onto something so phenomenal it could affect far more than just fertility one day. But don’t expect him to toot his own horn.
“Tom could be the first man to walk on the moon, and he’d say it was no big deal,” says colleague and division chief David Walmer, MD, PhD.

Babies on Board

Published in The New Physician, March 2005

Even Sethina Edwards was amazed when she attended the “Welcome to Medical School” gathering at the University of Bristol in England last fall. One would not expect Edwards, a mother of two and a former freelance publicist, to be surprised by the fact that a whopping 75 percent of her classmates were women. After all, for the past six years, aspiring women physicians around the world have been turning to her for support.

In 1999, when Edwards decided to seek a career in medicine, she was pregnant with her first daughter. Training to be a physician is difficult enough without the complications of motherhood. “People thought I’d gone mad,” Edwards says. “Lots of people told me it was impossible.”

When to have kids

Published in The New Physician, March 2005

(sidebar to “Babies on Board“)

If all goes according to plan, by this time in 2007, Meredith Hancock will have a 1-year-old child and will be nearing the end of her first year of medical school. For this to happen, Hancock must first complete the prerequisites she needs to apply to medical school, take the Medical College Admission Test next month, get pregnant sometime after that, get accepted, have her baby and start training in fall 2006.

If, if, if.

“That’s my hope,” says the Sacramento resident. “I’d like to stay home a little bit before I actually start school. But I know there’s no good time, so I’ll just have to take it as it comes.” Indeed. Hancock and her husband may have plans for a family, but her medical training is the only thing she has certain control over, assuming she’s accepted. Visit the online chat forums of the Student Doctor Network or MomMD.com on any given day, and you will be bombarded with the question: When is the best time to have kids?

And it’s one, most women say, that not even a soothsayer could pinpoint. That’s because no matter how controlling you may be, Mother Nature is in charge when it comes to having children.

Preparing for Residency

Published in The New Physician, March 2005

(sidebar to “Babies on Board“)

You could say that Dr. Rivka Stein is infinitely comfortable in her own skin. That’s because the Brooklyn pediatrician arrived for her residency interviews packing more than just an unyielding set of expectations. She was also eight months pregnant with her second child. “So [the issue of motherhood] definitely came up as I waddled in there,” says the mother of four.

Stein, an orthodox Jew, says she never questioned her ability to have both a family and a medical career; in her community, the best timing for these things isn’t planned. But Stein did approach her residency search in an open manner and took control of her own situation—something many women are afraid to do, becoming apologists for their families instead.

Part-time Practice

Published in The New Physician, March 2005

(sidebar to “Babies on Board“)

There was a time when Dr. Erin Harris dreamed of becoming “a full-fledged country doctor, delivering babies, that sort of thing.” But four draining years in medical school, one year of family practice residency and one infant later, that’s all changed.

“Now I realize that I really can’t do that and have the life that I want,” says Harris, who became a mother in her third year at East Tennessee State University James H. Quillen College of Medicine and is in her second year of residency there. “I’m going to find a practice where I can structure things the way that I want them to be. I want to do three days a week, part time.”