From Nurse to Nerd: Why I Became a Fertility Doctor

This week’s episode is deeply personal. Dr. Mark Amols shares the journey that led him to become a fertility doctor—from his early days as a nurse, to witnessing a friend’s struggle with infertility, to navigating his own fertility challenges with his wife. You’ll learn how these experiences shaped his mission to make fertility care more compassionate, more accessible, and more affordable. It’s not just a career—it’s a calling.

If you’ve ever wondered who’s behind the mic each Tuesday, this is the episode that lets you in.

Thanks for tuning in to another episode of 'Taco Bout Fertility Tuesday' with Dr. Mark Amols. If you found this episode insightful, please share it with friends and family who might benefit from our discussion. Remember, your feedback is invaluable to us – leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred listening platform.

Stay connected with us for updates and fertility tips – follow us on Facebook. For more resources and information, visit our website at www.NewDirectionFertility.com.

Have a question or a topic you'd like us to cover? We'd love to hear from you! Reach out to us at TBFT@NewDirectionFertility.com.

Join us next Tuesday for more discussions on fertility, where we blend medical expertise with a touch of humor to make complex topics accessible and engaging. Until then, keep the conversation going and remember: understanding your fertility is a journey we're on together.

Transcript

0:01

Today we talk about why I became a fertility doctor. I'DOCTOR Mark Amols and this is Taco about Fertility Tuesday. Today's episode is a little bit different. Normally Im talking about educational topics, but today I want to educate you about me. Why did I become a fertility doctor? Did I do it for the money? Did I do it for the fame? Did I do it to improve my fortnite career? By educating you a little bit more about me, it might help you understand why I do this podcast. Now, a lot of people think the reason iame a, fertilility doctor is because I have infertility myself. And that's actually the farthest from the truth. I never thought that I would have problems with fertility from the standpoint of need'to be a fertility doctor. Matter of fact, there was a point in time where I thought about becoming a gylogical oncology surgeon because I liked doing surgery. But let's go back further. Basically, I love kids, and I knew someday I wanted to be a parent. That was the most important thing for me to be in life. Honestly, I didn't even care if I had to adopt kids. I just knew I wanted to be a dad someday. So you could say I kind of had this feeling that kids were important. And it's kind of weird because growing up we didn't really have that type of family. But for some reason, it was just something I really grasped on to. I used to actually babysit and used to love doing it. And that's probably one of the reasons I became a nurse first, because you want to help people. And nursing is one of those things where you could directly help people. When I see someone on the street, I won't give him a place to sleep. I see someone hungry, I won't give him food. But there was a point in my life that really made a change. And that's when I was growing up, my best friend's brother wasn't able to have kids. Now, at the time, I didn't know exactly why they couldn't, but what I did know was it was a really big deal. See, I grew up in Mesa, Arizona, and the Mesa, Arizona, there are a lot of LDS members, also known as Mormons, and for them it's very important to have kids. And so my best friend, who is also lds, when they were not able to have kids, I could see the hurt and I could see the almost this feeling of inadequacy in her that she wasn't able to have kids and she felt like she didn't Belong. It was at that time I realized that having kids wasn't just something we want, but it almost give us a feeling of purpose. For her, kids were a purpose. There was a pressure on her to have these kids. There was a feeling that she didn't bring this to the relationship. Now at that time I couldn't do anything, but it had an impression on me. And the impression was, I really wish I could help people, but I wasn't sure yet that I wanted to be a fertility doctor. But there's something that helped with me in nursing. I had a great time. I loved being a nurse. And I went to an externship and became a surgical nurse. Greatest job in the world by the way, if you're ever a nurse. And when I went to the surgical area and learned it and got a job at Mayo Clinic, they asked me if I would be willing to work in the gynelogical area now. Pretty interesting. Nobody wants to work in gynecology when it comes to surgery. For some reason, it's like a taboo area. No one wants to go there, especially men. However, I didn't care. I was like, sure, I'll do it. And I went into it and I took on that job with a lot of seriousness and I really loved it. What I loved about it were the people that I worked with. And I loved the fact that I was able to be an advocate for these patients while they were re asleep under anesthesia. See, when you're asleep, the, surgical coordinator is there to make sure that no one's leaning on you and, you know, making sure that you're covered up. And so it would be important for me that if we weren't working on a certain area, make sure it was covered up. They give that patient to respect and modesty they deserve. Even if they're asleep. You could say I was kind of a feminist in some ways. I really felt good to help women and probably because when I was raised, I was raised mainly by my mom and not until later in life with my dad. So one day I'm doing surgery, helping out the surgeons, and the new surgeon comes in. Dr. Anita Singh. She was an REI doctor at Mayo Clinic and she was doing the case and I was blown away. Not only was she one of the most amazing physicians I've ever met, I was really impressed about her knowledge basede. I was really impressed with the whole anatomy that she understood as she explained malarian anomalies to me. And so I got the chance to spend time with their clinic as a fourth year medical student. So now I'm out of nursing. I'm in medical school. I knew I wanted to be a gynecologist because I thought, man, these are the most amazing people in surgery. I fel most of the other surgeons were kind of jerks, whereas the gynecologists, they were also nice. They were great surgeons. I thought, okay, this is where I want to be. I'm a nice guy. I don't really want to be with those mean people. And so in my fourth year, I did this rotation in rei, and I fell in love with it. What I learned at that time was that REI doctors are the nerds of obuan doctors. They are the doctors who want to learn every little tiny thing. They want to figure things out like it's a puzzle. Because what most people don't understand about reproductive doctors are they're reproductive endocrinologist and infertility specialist, which means we are the specialist when it comes to hormones, when it comes to all the endocrine hormones that go in the body. And so, like I said, we are the nerds. And this is going to be a surprise for some of you, but I am a nerd. And I said, oh, my goodness, I love this place. It was like nerd heaven was. At that time, I knew, I want to be a fertility doctor. And then I remembered also my best friend's brother. I remember how hurt they were. And I thought, what if I could make a difference? What if I could become an REI doctor and I can help those who couldn't get helped? Maybe I can make it more affordable, because I didn't come from a rich background, and so I was used to not having things. And so affordability was a very important thing to me. I felt like everyone should be able to have a child. And I felt like money shouldn't matter now. I didn't know I was going to become a fertility doctor because it's very competitive. So I had to go to med school like I did. I went and did a residency at Mayo Clinic, and then I was very fortunate. I was able to get into the Reproductive Medicine Fellowship, where I spent three years and did my training and then became a reproductive doctor. But along the way, something happened. It was during my second year of residency. My wife and I were thinking about having kids. Now, to be fair, when I say thinking about having kids, we were trying for many years before then, but we just thought, okay, when it happens, it happens. Just like most of you. We didn't realize that it should have happened within the first six months. And so I thought, well, let me just start with something simple, a semen analysis. And so I, went into seme analysis. And later that day, it came back. Now, I can tell you, it was a very weird process. That was my first introduction to reproductive medicine at, Mayo. They literally put you in, like, a steel room. There's just steel everywhere. There is nothing that isn't steel. You feel like you're almost in an experiment, and then you have to give your sample. It's very weird. You hit a button, someone comes in, they get it from you, and then you just leave. But later that day, I saw the sample, and I couldn't believe it. They weren't just bad numbers. They were horrible numbers. And then it kind of made sense. I realized now I know why we didn't get pregnant all those years. We weren't just not lucky, but we probably have a problem. So, like anyone, we went and we saw the fertility doctor. And then we found out we had other issues. My wife, although, probably wouldn't have any problems getting pregnant if it wasn't for my sperm issues, she also had some issues. She didn't make a lot of eggs, so she had diminished ovarian reserve. But again, the biggest problem was still me. And so we knew we had to go to ivf. Now, remember, I'm not a fertility doctor yet. I'm just a resident in obijoan residency. So now we're getting ready to go through the ivfal process, and they tell me how much it's going to cost. It was at least $20,000. And I remember thinking at that time, not only do we not have$20,000, but I don't think we're ever going to have $20,000 for the next seven years. Because when you're in residency or fellowship, you don't make a lot of money. I think I was making, like,$30,000 a year. And that's when I started realizing I may never have kids. Not, sure. I could have used donor sperm, and we could have looked at other options, like adoption. But I'm just saying, at that moment, I felt like there was no way I was going to have kids. Now, I was very fortunate at my work, they allowed you to pay for those expenses over two years by taking off your paycheck. Although it was a very large expense, it was still doable. And so we did it. But we knew we were only going to get one chance. And it was scary as hell because if it didn't work, not only did we have to keep paying that for the next two years, but we wouldn't even have a child to show for it, and we wouldn't ever be able to try again for at least another six to seven years. It was at this point that I was really pissed at the fertility industry. I thought, why could it be so much? How is this not important to have a kid? And so I started looking into things a little bit. I started talking to some of the reps because I was already in with a kind of fertility group because they knew I wanted to be REI doctor someday. And I started talking to reps and finding how much things cost, and it didn't add up. The numbers just didn't add up. I couldn't figure out why was costing $20,000. And so over the next few years, as my wife and I, as you've heard the story, were successful on that first transfer and had identical twin girls, I kept looking more and more into this world of fertility. At that point, I didn't want to just be a fertility doctor now to help people get pregnant. I realized my goal now was to become a fertility doctor and change the industry. Why I say change the industry, I'm not saying change it like, it never done before. I'm saying I realized it was just too expensive. And it wasn't because it cost that much. It was that expensive because people were willing to pay for it. And that's when I realized, once I figure out the cost, I figured out exactly how much it would cost to actually put someone through ivf. And then I had that idea, I'm going to start my own clinic someday. Now, it's easy to say that, but it's not easy to do. So just like anybody, I got out fellowship, I went and worked with another doctor, Fantastic doctor, had a very good career for a few years. And then we went our separate ways and I started a clinic. But what was s interesting is before I started that clinic, I've always wanted to do this. And what helped me do that was one day I was on the plane and I'm a pretty friendly person, so just started talking to the guy next to me, and he was a business guy, and we were talking about different industries. I was telling him how messed up this fertility industry was and how I wanted to go in there and change that industry. And he started giving me basically a full lesson in business about what I wanted to do and how it's been done in other industries. It was that point that I was motivated again. I didn't have the ability to do that on Day one. But three years into my career, I had the ability. Now, it was not without risk. I had to basically put up everything, my home, my family, to be able to try this. But I did it because my wife and I believed in one thing. The reason I went into this is to help people. And the reason I wanted to make my own clinic, because I wanted to change the industry. And so now, 11 years forward, we have a very successful clinic. But what we're doing is, is that we're not resting on the fact that we made affordable. We focus on the fact that we offer great quality care and high pregnancy rates. There's nothing that brings me more happiness. And when someone comes to me and says, I would have never been able to get pregnant anywhere else, thank goodness you guys are here offering affordable care, and I'm not done. I want to even be more affordable. I want to have more accessibility, and I want people to be educated more. So that way they don't even have to get into these situations where they need fertility treatment, but know early on in their lives that they have to miss ovarian reserve. Although there were many things that made me on the path to become a fertility doctor, such as becoming a nurse, getting that job at Mayo Clinic, and getting in the gylogical field, and meeting Dr. Anita Singh, the thing is, is that my experiences is what made me the fertility doctor I am today. And that doesn't mean that other doctors can't be great without going through this path. But I thought it'd be good for you to know this path, have a better idea about me. And I understand. One of the reasons I do this podcast is because I remember when my wife and I went through, everything was very generic. It was just kind of like the basic of fertility. There was nothing that really told me why. Why is the doctor doing that? What's the science behind that? No, I appreciate there's the Internet now and you can look things up, but back then there wasn't. And even today, I've listened to some other podcasts, I've listened to some of those episodes, and it's very generic. So when I do these podcast, it's because I want to bring something that wasn't there when my wife and I went through. And as we branched our clinic to more and more areas, I want everyone to know that I believe fertility care is a basically human right. And I don't say that jokingly, like some people will say about some things. I'm not saying that everyone needs to pay for other people to have babies. But what I am saying is that we all benefit from other people having babies and so although I don't have the right answer of how to make this mandatory for everyone, I do think it would benefit us all to eventually have it where everyone has that right. At least I'm going to do my part. I'm going to try to help by making fertility more affordable, more accessible, and doing with every bit of heart I have. I know this was a traditional episode that might have been boring for some of you, but for those who have listened to this podcast or wanted to know a little bit about me and what got me into this, I thought that would be a nice show for you. As always, if you like this show, give us a five star review on your favorite medium. And if you also like having your questions answered, go to our new show SPEURM Meets Egg on every other Wednesday at 6pm I look forward to talking to you guys again next week on talkac about Fertility Tuesday.