About GENESIS Fertility

Comprehensive services

Everything about the GENESIS practice reflects our dedication to serving the individual patient. Foremost is the comprehensiveness of what we provide. This includes not only the expert services of reproductive endocrinologists, but also care from other specialists that can be crucial to success. They include:

• A urologist specializing in male fertility
• A psychologist with special expertise in counseling individuals and couples with infertility
• A genetic counselor, with special training in counseling about genetic diseases and the fertility procedures used to overcome them
• Reproductive scientists who are able and willing to discuss with patients the laboratory techniques they use for assisted conception

These professionals are supported in their work at GENESIS by a nursing, clinical and administrative staff whose energies are exclusively focused on the alleviation of infertility.

Location and Physical Space

The main office of GENESIS is located in the beautifully designed Calko Medical Building, on the corner of Bay Parkway & 60^th Street in Brooklyn – conveniently accessible by bus, train or car. It is fifteen minutes from the Verrazano Bridge and Belt Parkway, making it easily accessible not only to our Brooklyn patients but also to patients from the South Shore of Long Island, Staten Island and the New Jersey Coast. Valet parking is available inside the building; this is an especially useful feature for those patients requiring frequent visits during a treatment cycle. GENESIS also operates satellite offices conveniently located in central Staten Island, Park Slope, Forest Hills and Hewlett, Long Island..

The GENESIS facility was specifically designed and built to house all of the elements necessary to deliver state-of-the-art fertility care. The colors and décor were chosen to foster a relaxed atmosphere. The reception area has the feel of a reading room. The consultation rooms are warm and inviting. Examination rooms are spacious, with private access to bathroom facilities. The operating suite and full laboratory facilities are located onsite.  Our patients requiring advanced care appreciate having these facilities on site. This keeps the total care of every patient in the hands of our dedicated staff. Patients at GENESIS have no need to come into contact with any hospital staff or any others who may not understand the ordeals of infertility.

As a way of providing an appropriate environment for patients struggling with infertility, we have chosen not to line our walls with the many pictures of babies. (We have, however, hung thousands of thank-you notes on our walls; most patients generally appreciate and are encouraged by them.) Successful patients are referred early to their obstetricians, so no active patient ever shares the reception area with a woman who is visibly pregnant. As a rule, we discourage all patients from bringing children to our office. (As much as we appreciate visits from former patients and their children, certain times are designated for such visits.)

Support staff

Every staff member at GENESIS has been sensitized to the needs of individuals and couples with infertility. From the first contact to the last visit – usually, on the way to the obstetrician – patients at GENESIS will feel that every aspect of their care has been delivered by professionals who understand their needs and always have their best interest in mind. While we cannot guarantee the ultimate outcome of patient care, we do guarantee that every patient is treated with respect and compassion. In keeping with our mission statement, we always put “Patients First”.

Record keeping

At GENESIS, we believe that electronic recording all of all patient medical data is fundamental to patient safety. An electronic medical record is created for every new patient, linking all information about her with that of her spouse or significant other, as appropriate. The complete medical history, as well as the physical exam, physician assessment and treatment plans are all documented electronically.

The ready availability of charts on the computer network fosters immediate and thorough documentation. Information cannot be lost or misread, a crucial element in preventing medical errors. Additionally, the system eases the process by which all of us do our jobs, giving us more time to keep every patient physically and emotionally comfortable during her treatment cycles. In a very real way, therefore, the electronic record is an essential ingredient behind the personalized care at GENESIS. (Our staff, of course, being the major part.)

At GENESIS we have been using electronic records for nearly three decades. Our experience in using digitized records successfully in the care of many thousands of patients has been central to our record of personalized care and safety.

Patient Education

The physicians leading GENESIS have been in practice for over two decades. Over time, they have developed an approach to patient education that is evident in every aspect of care. Essentially, an educated patient is our best patient. To that end, we take pride in explaining to our patients the rationale underlying our approach to treatment, as well as all the pertinent information that must be understood prior to commencing treatment. Additionally, we provide explanatory written handouts for virtually every step of treatment. Nearly all of these have been prepared by physicians reflecting the GENESIS philosophy and process.

The majority of our nursing staff have received formal certification by the American Society of Reproductive Medicine. When advanced reproductive technologies are planned, the nursing staff gives formal instruction covering all the procedures critical to proper patient care. Most patients are surprised at the level of detail that describes these presentations. At GENESIS, we take pride in having you understand not only what we do but also why we do things certain ways. Your knowledge of the processes we use assists us in delivering proper care and optimizing the outcome. Educated patients are our most successful patients, too.

In the business world, it is common to identify certain “benchmarks” that serve as measures of quality. Airlines use their on-time rate. Financial services use their rate of return. In medicine, the benchmarks that define quality can be much more difficult to define. What we’ve outlined above is what we believe are measures of quality, and by those measures we define the quality of care as exceptional. But there are also other benchmarks of high quality medical care; in the field of reproductive medicine one benchmark stands above all the rest – the delivery of a healthy baby.

As a member program of the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technologies, or SART, we report pregnancy rates from the in vitro fertilization program at GENESIS on an annual basis. These rates are available online at SART or on our website here. Our pregnancy rates have for many years been at or better than the national average, and certainly competitive with the other programs in our area. We make a considerable effort to avoid multiple pregnancies so that our patients have the greatest chance of having a healthy pregnancy. To appreciate just how good our statistics are, however, it is helpful to understand just how to read the data from SART.

(A) SART publishes data from IVF cycles only. The database does not include patients who receive other fertility treatments. So, patients who conceive using alternative, less aggressive interventions, are not represented in the statistics. At GENESIS, we proudly treat patients using the least invasive fertility treatments before using more costly and invasive assisted reproductive technology. Our patients are referred to our IVF program when medically necessary to do so. Still, our pregnancy rates from IVF remain robust.

(B) Patients entering fertility treatment generally would like to know their chances of conceiving using a particular treatment. While optimally they would prefer to conceive within one treatment attempt, most educated patients understand that assisted pregnancies, like natural ones, occur over time. According to SART.org, a cumulative live birth outcome “reflects the chance of achieving a live birth after a fresh or frozen embryo transfer within a year of a cycle initiated for egg retrieval. The live birth may have been the primary outcome (from the first fresh or frozen embryo transfer) or a subsequent outcome (frozen embryo transfers).”

(C) Every page of the SART database warns the reader not to compare pregnancy rates among programs because “entry criteria differ.” The term entry criteria refer to the specific indications that different programs use to offer IVF treatment to patients with infertility. Because the utilization of IVF as well as the criteria used for offering IVF differ across practices, comparing success rates is simply not an accurate measure of quality. This is especially true when comparing LBR/transfer, as discussed above.

At GENESIS, we offer IVF to our patients according to standard, well-accepted medical protocols. Yet, many patients conceive at GENESIS using less aggressive measures. When patients do enter our IVF program, we generally transfer the minimum number of embryos that will give a realistic chance of conception, but with a minimal chance of multifetal pregnancy. We take pride in the fact that our pregnancy rates are high, yet our multifetal pregnancy rates remain very low. Finally, at GENESIS we treat patients, not our IVF statistics. Being on the very top statistical rung is not something we chase, because it comes at a cost of being overly selective and closing the door on too many “difficult” patients. We welcome patients who have failed IVF at other programs into ours, so long as they are aware of the risks and benefits of doing so.