Feature
Replacing the scalpel and the stork
An overview of IR and assisted reproductive technology By Meredith Snook, MD; Sarah Lewis, FNP-BC; and Paul B. Lewis, MD, MBA
t was an early July evening, and the air conditioning was, again, not working in the aged hospital. The 36-year-old woman—now a new mother—rested in the dimly lit bed with her eyes glassy, her body exhausted, but her heart elated. The room had quieted except for the rhythmic beeping of monitors and the sound of her newborn breathing while swaddled and warm against her chest. Looking down, she studied her son’s face, memorizing him. For years she held him only as a hope. But now, with
16 IRQ | SUMMER 2025
overwhelming relief, she thought, he is here—he is finally here—and truly in my arms. And she knew that without in-vitro fertilization (IVF), his life would not have been possible one generation ago.
Around the same time that Charles Dotter, MD, performed the world’s first angioplasty in 1964,1
Robert Edwards,
MD, and Patrick Steptoe, MD, began their pioneering collaborative work on IVF.2
The world’s first baby conceived through IVF was born in 1978—the same
year Dr. Dotter was nominated for the Nobel Prize in medicine.
The fields of IR and reproductive endocrinology and infertility (REI) share a similar pace of groundbreaking medicine and procedures. For IR, percutaneous therapies developed into the medicine of the future, and in REI, assisted reproductive techniques (ART) made the impossible a reality. This article offers a concise and very limited overview—or an introduction, perhaps—of ART, with a focus on the potential role of IR in it. Please note, the procedures of ART are outlined here in very broad strokes.
The art of reproductive endocrinology When that quiet and seemingly effortless moment between a new mother and her child is made possible by ART, it begins well before the usual nine months. That moment is often the culmination of years marked by uncertainty, loss, financial obligations and layered medical care. The treatment
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