When a patient of mine recently moved to California, she asked me to refer her to a specialist who could continue her care. Drs. Vaughn, Hansard, Burger, and I have each noticed that when we provide our patients with a couple of names, they frequently ask us why we chose those particular specialists over many others in the same area. This made us realize that many couples with infertility in Central Texas may be thinking the same thing about TFC – why should they come see us? WHY TFC? In an attempt to answer this question, we wrote an article that you can find on the home page of our website at www.txfertility.com. I have taken the liberty of breaking this article down into smaller blog entries so that patients can read it at their leisure. In this sixth blog, I will tell you a little about our partners in mental health and acupuncture, as well as our award winning research department, which make us very different from other doctors who practice infertility.
Mental Health and Acupuncture
We recognize that fertility diagnosis and treatment can be stressful, and we therefore work with Central Texas’ leading counselors who are there to help you every step of the way. We specifically do not have a counselor on our staff as we recognize that different couples have different needs; we want you to seek care from someone with whom you do connect, rather than someone with whom we think you should connect. We also encourage the use of ancillary services such as acupuncture. Again, we work collaboratively with the leading acupuncture specialists in the greater Austin area and communicate directly with them in order to successfully integrate their recommendations into your treatment.
Research
The field of infertility is not static. Things change dramatically and rapidly. In order to keep us on the cutting edge, we established our own Research Department in 1995. Since that time, we have worked with every leading company in the fertility field in order to help develop and test medications, new treatment protocols, and new surgical techniques that directly benefit our patients. These research studies – in addition to providing valuable information to the manufacturers and governmental agencies that oversee these studies –have enabled hundreds of our patients to receive free or low-cost treatment that has lead to the successful delivery of hundreds of healthy babies. Just as we provide comprehensive fertility diagnosis and treatment, we also perform comprehensive research. We help to develop the actual research protocols, we perform the research, we present our findings at national and international meetings, we publish our research findings in professional journals such as Fertility & Sterility and Human Reproduction, and we testify before the Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in order to encourage the approval of beneficial products and treatments. In addition to publishing our research in peer reviewed journals, each of our partners also write book chapters in the leading textbooks of infertility and IVF. Specifically, we write the chapters on Endometriosis and Adenomyosis, Sperm Evaluation, the significance of tubal disease prior to IVF treatment, and Unexplained Infertility. Our chapters are considered to be authoritative works, and are routinely referenced by other international fertility experts in their own publications. Much of our research has received national and international recognition, and our physicians are routinely asked to present our findings at major infertility meetings throughout the world. Only TFC conducts, presents, publishes, and has been recognized for outstanding research in the Central Texas area.
Stay tuned for this weekly series on Why TFC? Or if you prefer to read the article in its entirety, please visit