Something Is Changing in Fertility Care
During my almost 40 years working in IVF, there have been three distinct moments when I felt fertility care fundamentally changed.
The first was the introduction of ICSI (Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection).
The second was the arrival of the internet.
The third is happening now: generative AI.
Patients are arriving at consultations having already spent hours researching treatment options, interpreting test results, seeking reassurance and exploring their choices through tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and others. Many have already had extensive conversations about their fertility before they ever speak to a fertility professional.
What makes this different from previous waves of digital health is not simply access to information. Patients have had access to information for decades. What is changing is the nature of the interaction.
Patients are no longer just reading information; they are engaging in ongoing conversations with technology.
They ask AI to explain treatment plans in simpler language, interpret test results, compare clinic recommendations, explore alternative options and revisit difficult conversations. Many continue these conversations long after they leave the clinic.
Whether we view this as positive, negative or something in between, it represents a significant shift in how patients engage with fertility care.
Is this really an AI story?
The more I have thought about this issue, and the more conversations I have had with fertility professionals, the more I find myself wondering whether this is really an AI story at all.
Perhaps it is a trust story.
Patients have always sought second opinions and searched for information. They have always spoken to friends, joined forums and looked for reassurance outside the clinic. What feels different now is the scale, speed and accessibility of these conversations.
A patient can now upload a clinic letter into ChatGPT and ask for it to be explained in plain English. They can ask whether alternative treatments exist, compare recommendations from different clinics, challenge advice, generate lists of questions and even draft complaint letters. Within minutes, they can access a level of information and apparent certainty that previously required considerable time and effort.
For some, this may be empowering. For others, it may be confusing. Either way, it represents a significant shift in how patients engage with fertility care.
One observation that has emerged repeatedly during conversations with healthcare professionals is that many patients now appear to carry a burden that previous generations did not experience: the expectation that they should research, verify and validate medical advice for themselves.
This burden is perhaps particularly evident within fertility care. Patients are often making decisions at emotionally vulnerable moments in their lives. They may be navigating uncertainty, grief, financial pressure, relationship strain, repeated treatment failures or the fear that time is running out. It is therefore unsurprising that many seek information, reassurance and validation from multiple sources.
In some cases, patients arrive at consultations having already formed opinions about diagnoses, investigations or treatment options. In others, they leave consultations feeling responsible for checking whether recommendations are correct, complete or consistent with information they have encountered elsewhere.
Access to information can be empowering, but it can also create pressure. Patients may feel responsible not only for making decisions, but also for determining which sources of information can be trusted.
This is not simply an AI issue. It is also a social media issue.
Many patients encounter fertility information long before they enter a clinic. Algorithms determine which stories they see, which voices are amplified and which narratives are repeatedly reinforced. Success stories, treatment recommendations, lifestyle advice and fertility influencers all contribute to shaping expectations before a consultation has even taken place.
By the time many patients arrive in clinic, they are not arriving as blank slates. They arrive with existing beliefs, assumptions, fears, hopes and expectations that have often been shaped by digital technologies. This creates a challenge not only for patients but also for professionals.
At the same time, fertility professionals operate within a world of uncertainty. Much of fertility care is based on probabilities rather than guarantees, clinical judgement rather than certainty, and individualised decision-making rather than simple right-or-wrong answers. We routinely discuss success rates, risks, options and unknowns. We explain that two patients with seemingly similar histories may require very different approaches.
This creates an interesting tension.
Patients are increasingly exposed to information that appears confident, personalised and definitive. Fertility professionals, by contrast, often have to communicate complexity, nuance and uncertainty.
Many fertility professionals describe spending increasing amounts of time discussing information encountered through social media, online forums and AI-generated responses. Some report growing concerns around misinformation, unrealistic expectations and self-diagnosis. Others describe increasing numbers of complaints and challenges that appear to have been drafted or supported using AI tools.
At the same time, many recognise genuine benefits. Better-informed patients can ask better questions, participate more actively in decision-making and become stronger partners in their own care.
The reality is unlikely to be entirely positive or entirely negative. What interests me most is what these developments tell us about trust.
If patients increasingly feel the need to validate recommendations through AI, what does that tell us about how they experience fertility care? If they seek reassurance elsewhere, what needs remain unmet when they leave the consultation room? If they place greater trust in information from algorithms, influencers or AI-generated content than in healthcare professionals, how did we arrive at that point?
These are not comfortable questions, but they may be some of the most important questions facing fertility care today.
I do not yet know the answers. What I do know is that something is changing very quickly in fertility care, and that fertility professionals are already encountering the consequences of these changes in clinics, consultation rooms and patient interactions around the world.
This is why colleagues and I within the Education Programme of the European Fertility Society have launched a research project exploring how fertility professionals are experiencing the growing influence of generative AI within fertility care. Our aim is not to decide whether AI is good or bad, but to capture a snapshot of a profession experiencing change while that change is happening.
Moments of significant transformation are rarely obvious while we are living through them, and by the time we fully understand their impact, the landscape has often already shifted.
If you are a fertility professional and would like to contribute to this research, the anonymous survey can be accessed here:
https://medium.com/@juliepatrickson/something-is-changing-in-fertility-care-df519c7cd08e