PFC is proud to announce that all 5 Pacific Fertility Center Partner physicians have been named top reproductive endocrinologits on the U.S. News Top Doctors list.  Drs. Philip Chenette, Carolyn Givens, Carl Herbert, Isabelle Ryan, and Eldon Schriock were selected as top doctors based on a peer nomination process by U.S. News Top Doctors and Castle Connolly Medical Ltd.

Congratulations to each of you for this incredible honor!

I was born and raised in Shanghai.  My father, a university mathematics professor, was one of the first generation of college graduates in China after the Cultural Revolution.  My mother, though intelligent and bold, never had the opportunity to pursue higher education.  They were “tiger parents” long before that term even existed.   This was the era before China had opened its door to the West, and disposable income was limited.  Nonetheless, they spent every penny towards my education and broadening my horizon.  I was the only child in my neighborhood to take private lessons in Chinese calligraphy and classical Chinese painting.  We spent weekends touring art exhibits and museums.  To ensure that I would succeed in school, my father taught me English and algebra during my summer breaks.

My childhood years spent holding the calligraphy brush played a critical role in helping me stay connected with my cultural roots after my family’s immigration to Canada when I was twelve.  Through the mastery of this traditional art form, I gained a deeper understanding of Chinese history and culture.  It has given me a platform with which I was able to continue my study of the Chinese language and literature long after English had become my primary language of learning.

My family’s immigration to Canada was serendipitous.  My father initially took us abroad for a one-year visiting fellowship at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg.   It was the summer of 1989, when the communist regimes throughout Europe fell like dominos and in Beijing the bloody suppression of student demonstrators for democracy occurred in Tiananmen Square.  Although we were not politically involved, my family was given the opportunity to seek asylum in Canada. My parents decided to stay.

What followed was the classic immigrant story, filled with the hardships of survival in a foreign country away from loved ones, and, at the same time, the never diminishing hope and optimism for the attainment of the “American dream”. 

After attending junior and high school in Canada where I excelled in math and science, I applied to colleges in the U.S. with a vague plan to have a career in the sciences.  With this in mind, I was convinced that MIT offered the strongest programs in virtually every scientific discipline.  My years at MIT were the most formative period in my professional and personal development.  My professors and research mentor opened my eyes to the wonders of biology and inspired me to pursue a career in the study of the human body.  I became fascinated by how the body functions, especially the mysterious process by which a single stem cell develops into a complete organism.  At the same time, I continued to pursue my interest in Chinese by taking graduate level courses at Harvard and obtained a minor in Chinese literature along with my S.B. in Biology from MIT.

My interest in the human body led me to study medicine at Harvard Medical School.  During medical school, I conducted research in developmental neuroscience, which led to my honors thesis.  In addition, I became clinically interested in women’s health, a multifaceted discipline with broad psychosocial, political, as well as ethical implications.  I realized that I wanted to take care of women, promote reproductive health, and be a part of building families.  To that end, I completed a residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).  During my residency, I learned to treat women of all ages and with every type of ailment from morning sickness to ovarian cancer.   It soon became clear that while I enjoyed delivering babies, I resonated most with patients who could not conceive.  Furthermore, the combination of advanced technology and cutting edge research in reproductive medicine perfectly matched my long held passions in science and technology.  Having come to that realization, I decided to pursue subspecialty training in Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility, and was accepted into the fellowship at Columbia University Medical Center in New York. 

At Columbia, I was fortunate to be taught by some of the pioneers of the field, Drs. Roger Lobo and Mark Sauer, who have trained many respected Reproductive Endocrinologists around the country, including PFC’s very own Dr. Chenette.  Under their guidance, I conducted research on how follicular hormones affect human oocyte and embryo quality, which has led to several published manuscripts in peer respected journals, as well as my fellowship thesis.  Clinically, I became interested in treating patients with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) and other endocrine disorders, as well as fertility preservation, for patients who desire to delay childbearing for either medical or social reasons.

While I was a resident at UCSF, I met and fell in love with my husband and we welcomed the birth of our daughter last year.  We both love the Bay Area and decided that San Francisco is the place where we want to raise our family.  I have always had the highest regard for the physicians at PFC, one of the most respected fertility centers in Northern California.  Therefore, it is my pleasure and privilege to be able to join Drs. Herbert, Schriock, Givens, Chenette, and Ryan in their mission to help women and families of the Bay Area and beyond in achieving their reproductive potential.

Throughout all these years of training and research during which I learned many exciting new skills and technologies, I still derive the most profound joy and satisfaction from the very first glimpse of a beating heart on ultrasound and the accompanying excitement in my patient’s eyes.  It was not until I held my own daughter and she flashed me one of her toothless gummy grins that the notion finally hit home: life is precious and the love for one’s child knows no boundaries.  I am truly lucky to be in a profession where I have been granted the privilege to take part in the creation of a family, a privilege that I will honor and treasure throughout my career.

Special LGBT event happening tomorrow! We hope to see you there.

6:30 – 8:00 PM
LGBT Community Center
1800 Market St., San Francisco
Call 888-834-3095 or contact us for reservations

Attend an informative educational event on Wednesday, October 7th and hear firsthand from gay and lesbian parents about their family building experience. This is an opportunity to ask you specific questions and learn about advanced family building solutions.

Topics include:

* Selecting the right donor and/or surrogate
* Emotional & psychological aspects of gays & lesbians having children
* Hearing gay and lesbian parents accounts of their personal experience

Let Pacific Fertility Center be your guide on your journey to building a healthy family.

Cutting Edge Approaches to Sex and Relationship Therapy

Presented by: Dr. Naomi O’Keefe,
Licensed Clinical Psychologist

Thursday, March 26, 2009
Time: 4:00 – 5:00 p.m.

Program will be held at the
PFC Education Center
55 Francisco St., Fifth Floor
San Francisco, CA 94133
Parking in garage will be validated.

The Educational Series is a complimentary service provided by PFC to health care professionals specializing in the field of reproductive medicine, obstetrics and/or gynecology. Please watch for future talks on a variety of topics within the field.

Tuesday February 1st was a busy day here at Pacific Fertility Center. The front office was busy with their usual patient appointments, comings and goings for consultations, ultrasound scans and blood draws. In the procedure area and the lab, we were having one of our busier days, with 7 retrievals, 5 fresh embryo transfers and 1 frozen embryo transfer scheduled. It’s rare for us to have so many procedures on a single day, but because the exact date of a patient’s retrieval is uncertain and depends on their response to stimulation drugs, we get a day like this a few times per year. Fortunately, PFC has an exceptionally large and well-equipped laboratory, so we can cope easily with variations in case load. Also, both our nursing and embryology staff schedules are flexible enough to allow us to schedule extra staff when necessary. On that Tuesday for example, we had 8 of our 9 embryologists on duty in the lab

Even though most patient appointments don’t happen before 8 AM, lab and nursing staff are here between 7 and 7:30 in the morning to open up the facility and perform the usual quality control (QC) checks before the work day can begin. In the lab, once all QC and start-up procedures have been completed and documented, we begin looking at embryos that are to be transferred that morning, thawing frozen embryos for transfer, evaluating fertilization for the previous day’s patients, retrieving eggs and processing sperm samples. The nursing staff is busy checking in patients for retrievals, doing all their pre-operation checks and setting up IV bags, and coordinating patients for embryo transfers. Mornings are definitely our busiest time; we do this every day (7 days a week) so we like to think that the work flows smoothly.

At approximately 8:30 AM, right in the middle of the action, the power to our building and to those in a 10-block radius, went out. When a power outage occurs, there’s a split second when everything goes dark, but before you can think about it, emergency power kicks in and we almost seamlessly continue working. However, as part of our procedures for disaster preparedness, we have protocols for working during a power outage, and these immediately become active. First we check our emergency power generator and then all vital equipment to make sure that everything has power and is functioning normally. In the lab, one of our 15 incubators reset itself and went into calibration mode, so we simply moved its contents to a new home. No other problems or incidents occurred that day. We completed all retrievals and transfers in the usual way and our biggest concern was simply wondering why the power had gone out.

On the nursing end, patients were escorted up and down 5 flights of stairs because the elevators shut down, but otherwise their day was uneventful.

Emergency procedures and back-up power are a vital part of our operation. Our emergency generator will run our facility for 36 hours, or longer with the addition of diesel to the tank. The generator gets a 30-minute test run and an inspection every week. It receives a full service a minimum of 4 times a year and immediately after any power outage. After this instance, a service technician checked the generator and refilled the tank.

In the event there is a power failure when no one is present, the system will automatically switch over to back-up power. The alarm system in the lab then proceeds to dial each embryologist in turn on his or her home and cell phones until the call is received and verified with a code. All vital equipment is alarmed which enables us to check the status of the equipment from a remote location. We also have auditory monitoring capability and can listen to the background noise in the lab (such as a fire alarm) at any time. If it is necessary, we are prepared to have an individual physically present in the lab within 30 minutes of getting an alarm call.

Embryos and sperm in freezers don’t actually need power at all, provided that we physically fill the cryo tanks with liquid nitrogen once or twice a week. The computers that usually monitor and automatically fill these tanks do need power of course, but they are not essential to maintain refrigeration.

On February 1st, power was restored after 90 minutes, however we never know the time or duration of a power outage. At Pacific Fertility Center, we remain well rehearsed and prepared, just in case it happens on the busiest morning of the year.

Pacific Fertility Center has consolidated into one location. Our smaller Laurel Street office closed on Aug 8, 2003. Dr. Chenette and his patients now enjoy magnificent views of the San Francisco Bay from our sun-filled headquarters, as well as easier parking – a welcome benefit for those navigating the city streets.

This move allows us to create the highest quality embryology and fertility program under one roof. In addition to improving both physician and patient access to resources such as clinical coordinators, nursing staff, fertility counseling, and laboratory/procedure facilities, the consolidation and expansion of our laboratories provides direct benefits to patient care.

The laboratory has increased its handling of embryos for PGD, preimplantation genetic diagnosis, using single-gene testing as well as aneuploidy testing. The latter is a significant development that can help those who experience multiple miscarriages. (See October’s issue coming up for a more detailed lab update). We have upgraded our frozen sperm and embryo facility and purchased 3 new state-of-the-art storage tanks. The new tanks replace more than 20 small tanks that represented the combined storage of our two laboratories. All our frozen specimens have been relocated to the new computer controlled tanks, which offer the most advanced and secure system available for tissue banking. Our continual attention to detail in the laboratory was recognized when once again PFC received the exceptional finding of “no deficiencies” from the College of American Pathologists-American Society for Reproductive Medicine (CAP-ASRM).

As always, your care comes first and it is our goal to make a seamless transition to a single practice location. Please do not hesitate to contact us should have any concerns regarding this transition. We’re excited about the changes here at PFC and look forward to the continued improvement of our center and our on-going role in your care.