How IVF doctors take advantage of a patient's ignorance

A patient sent me an email about her failed FET ( frozen embryo transfer ) cycle.

I asked her to send me photos of the embryos which were transferred, and she emailed them to me.

Now it's obvious to the practised eye that these embryos are all dead. The cells are dark, which means they have not survived the thawing process ( perhaps because the embryologist was not skilled ). However, the poor patient has no way of being able to know this, and she feels her cycle failed because her uterus "rejected" her embryos and has been advised by her doctor to consider doing surrogacy !

Knowledge is power, and patients need to learn to do their homework if they want to get the best medical care. Now this does not mean that patients need to become embryologists ! There are lots of free resources available ( for example, you can see what embryos should look like at www.drmalpani.com/knowledge-center/ivf/embryos)   and these can help patients to demystify the IVF treatment process