No embryo photos = bad IVF clinic

 

When I provide patients who have failed an IVF cycle with a second opinion , I asked them to share their medical records with me .

I am very disappointed when they don't have photos of their embryos, and when I ask them why not , they get defensive, and provide a number of justifications.

• The doctor never give us any
•  I didn't even know that you could ask for embryo photos
•  That’s not the practice in that particular clinic . They are the best, and they don’t give photos to any of their patients

None of these are good answers .

IVF patients need to do their homework prior to starting an IVF cycle , because you can't afford to leave everything up to the doctor . If you are lucky enough to find a good doctor who follows good global practices and provides photos routinely and proactively to all his patients, you will be fine. But what happens if you end up in a bad IVF Clinic ? The tragedy is the number of bad clinics far outweighs the number of good ones !

The reason these IVF doctors refuse to provide photos is because they know they are not capable of producing good quality embryos , and they want to hide this fact from their patients. The loser in this situation is the patient , and this can be an expensive error to make !

When I suggest to patients that they should have been more proactive , they get upset ! Isn’t that the doctor’s job ? Why should a patient have to worry about all these technical details ? We are qualified to understand all this ! Isn’t that what we are paying the doctor for ?

 Yes, in a perfect world that would be true , but the reality is you can't assume that every doctor is competent! There is too much at stake for you to take short cuts !

 Other patients say – the doctor didn’t give us any photos , but said it was a Grade A embryo.

Just saying that it's a Grade A embryo means nothing – after all, talk is cheap ! This is why it's so important that embryo photographs be provided , and in a good clinic , doctors take pride in producing good embryos, and providing photographs as well, because they want to share this documentation with their patients – it provides them with confidence that they've received high quality medical care .

The fact that the patient did not get photos is a Red Flag , and suggests that the care provided wasn't good . Some patients say – But the doctor showed us the embryo on the screen – and we saw it was good. This is a Red Flag too ! If he could show you the embryo on the screen , then why couldn't he take a photograph of the embryo and give that to you ? After all, patients can’t understand how to assess the quality of an embryo by seeing it for a few seconds on a computer monitor !

And while it's true that I don't know how good or bad every IVF clinic is , a useful rule of thumb is to assume that if the IVF clinic doesn't provide photographs , it is not a good Clinic