We’ve all heard about the VIP patient. She’s a professional athlete, or a movie star, or her father is the CEO of a major hospital. It’s not uncommon throughout medicine to make little notes or asterisks in the chart so everyone is aware that this patient is a “VIP” and should receive everyone’s best care. I find myself frequently informing various members of our team at RMANJ, especially the embryology laboratory team, that certain of my patients are VIPs and they should all take extra care to provide the absolute best treatment possible. Not because any are particularly famous. This one deserves extra care in the lab when they perform ICSI because she has attempted IVF before and had an unexpectedly low fertilization rate. That one should get special care when her embryos are biopsied because she is traveling from hundreds of miles away for our particular laboratory expertise at RMANJ. The next patient because it took her over a year to finally come to grips with that fact that IVF was her best way to finally have a baby; I’m not sure she would be able to do this again, emotionally, if it’s not successful.
It must be a running joke in the lab that all of my patients are VIPs. But isn’t it true? Aren’t we all VIPs? Every single individual or couple who finally reaches the point of going through an IVF cycle has gone through an incredibly unique emotional, psychological and physical journey to reach this point. They all deserve no less than the absolute best care we would provide to a VIP, because they are.
Blog post by Dr. Eric J. Forman, MD, FACOG
Reproductive Medicine Associates of New Jersey Morristown, NJ
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