Maggie McKay (Host): When you're a couple trying to conceive, your doctor is everything. So today, Dr. Isiah Harris, Infertility Specialist from Reproductive Science Center of the San Francisco Bay Area's Los Gatos location, is here to talk about how teaching and working in different settings has helped him treat patients and provide successful outcomes. Also joining us is Jackie Xu, Founder of US Sincare and HIMSS member, who will be translating in Chinese.

Welcome to Fertile Edge, a podcast from Reproductive Science Center of the San Francisco Bay Area. I'm Maggie MacKay. Welcome, Dr. Harris and Jackie. To start off with, Dr. Harris, in reviewing your resume, I see that you received a lot of teaching awards during your time in residency. Is teaching something that's still important to you?

Dr Isiah D Harris: Firstly, thank you for the opportunity. It's my pleasure to be here. And absolutely, teaching is still something that is very, very important to me. I think through teaching, you really have an opportunity to solidify your own knowledge. And actually, it often allows or gives you the opportunity to expose gaps in your knowledge and understanding of various concepts. And so, I know questions from trainees who often have much less experience can often come from a perspective that we don't typically consider, and that really helps keep you as the educator engaged in that learning process yourself. And so, I have found it a tremendous tool, not only for the satisfaction of being able to help foster the growth of the next generation of physicians, but also to make sure that I myself are staying on top of my game and on top of the literature in the best way possible.

Host: Now that you're in private practice, how are you able to continue teaching?

Dr Isiah D Harris: Well, there has actually been a major evolution in the past couple of decades in the fertility landscape. And so at this point, some of the best research is actually coming from private centers. And while, you know, we still have our academic institutions as hubs for a lot of research, there's been tremendous growth in the amount of academics that are really coming from private practice, because we have learned to understand that only through that constant knowledge and learning seeking out answers are we able to advance and grow as a field.

And so, we have fellows that we work with from Stanford. And so, we get direct opportunities to educate them on a regular basis. But ultimately, the way I think about it is each patient counseling session is an education session. So every day, I'm teaching an audience of one or two to understand their fertility, highlight the unique features of their situation, and try to leave them with a better understanding of what's happening and then what we can do.

Host: Dr. Harris, I know that you have had the opportunity to work in several different practice settings for different organizations. What have you learned from having those different experiences?

Dr Isiah D Harris: I have worked in a few different practice settings. And the most valuable takeaway for me is that there are just simply many different ways to accomplish the same thing. From being in different settings and different practices with different cultures and different general approaches to fertility care, I now have the ability to draw on my experience from using so many different protocols for different patients. And now when a problem arises, I've not just seen it before, but I've seen it managed in a couple of different ways. And so, that gives me great intellectual flexibility when problems or unexpected situations do arise. And it also allows me to tailor my care to patients in a way that not just be the way I know, but now I can draw on these experiences to provide a care plan that's going to give that patient the best overall experience, not just the best outcome, because the experience is important as well. And that's one of the valuable things that you get from seeing the same general process performed in a number of different ways.

Host: And given that experience, what factors drew you to RSC in particular?

Dr Isiah D Harris: Well, first and foremost, the people. The fertility world is a relatively small world. And so, you tend to know a lot of the docs in various practices, particularly, in your locale. And so, I've known the folks here at RSC for quite a while, and I've always found them to be just incredibly thoughtful, and just a wonderfully tight knit group of providers. The philosophy here is also something that was really important to me. You know, as the fertility landscape has changed the economics have gotten in the way in some practice to some degree. And RSC has always had an incredibly strong ethical focus to their practice patterns.

It also provides an environment that really encourages us to be forward thinking. It's got an incredible foundation of standards and practices, but it allows us as individual doctors to explore unique paths that may be better suited to a particular patient situation. And then, you can't talk about RSC without talking about the success rates. I think, ultimately, having such an incredibly successful lab that has been doing tremendous work for such a long time, really allows me the opportunity to know that I'm going to be able to provide the best possible care for our patients. You know, we are in a very large national network and ROC has consistently had the highest success rates, not just in California, but in the nation. And so, that for me just provides the confidence that I know my patients are going to get the best possible care. And as long as I'm doing my job well, they're going to be very well suited.

Host: Dr. Harris, how much emphasis should a patient put on the success rates of a practice when they're considering where to go for their infertility services?

Dr Isiah D Harris: Well, I think success rates are hugely important because they tell you a lot about the quality of work that's happening at a particular practice. You know, I tell patients all the time that I tend to get all the hugs and high fives, but a lot of the real magic that's happening is actually happening backstage in the lab. And that work is critical to the success of a practice. I can do all the best things to put together a wonderful protocol. They get you to produce lots of follicles and eggs. But at the end of the day, if the lab isn't very successful at being able to get good fertilization, get good developments from the early cleavage stage to the blast stage, then all of my work is for naught.

So, I think successes are very, very critical, but they're certainly not the only thing. I think that's another part of what I love about RSC is that we pay a lot of attention to the care in being thoughtful to the emotional ups and downs of our patients and trying to be a real guide for them as they go through this process, which has a tremendous amount of ups and downs. There are a lot successes and failures throughout any individual's fertility journey. And so, having caring, thoughtful providers is a critical component as well. And I encourage patients to not just seek out practices with the highest success rates in terms of numbers, but also to seek a real partner who's going to be able to be with them, help them, guide them, and truly care for them, as they're going along this often very difficult journey.

Host: Well, as you said, Dr. Harris, fertility and trying to conceive is such an emotional journey. So, it was wonderful to meet you and talk to you and hear about your philosophy and what you learned through the years and how special a place it is where you work. So, thank you so much for your time. And Jackie as well, thank you so much. We appreciate your time and translating. To find out more, please visit rscbayarea.com/IVF/success-rates.

And if you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels and check out our entire library of topics of interest to you. Again, that was Dr. Isiah Harris and Jackie Xu. I'm Maggie McKay. This is Fertile Edge, a podcast from Reproductive Science Center of the San Francisco Bay Area. Thanks for listening.