Taco Bout Fertility Tuesday

Doctors Have Feelings Too: The Human Side of Fertility Care

• Mark Amols, MD • Season 7 • Episode 44

Share episode

Send us a text

In this powerful and deeply personal episode of Taco Bout Fertility Tuesday, Dr. Mark Amols opens up about something doctors rarely say out loud — that we have feelings too.

Step behind the white coat to hear the human side of fertility care: the burnout that comes with modern medicine, the emotional weight of every failed cycle, and the reality of being judged not by effort, but by outcomes. Dr. Amols shares raw stories about patient misunderstandings, communication breakdowns, and the painful impact of online reviews that don’t always reflect the truth.

This episode is an honest conversation about empathy — for both patients and doctors — reminding us that medicine isn’t perfect, but the people behind it care more than you’ll ever know.

💬 Topics include:

  • The emotional toll of infertility care on physicians
  • Burnout and documentation overload in modern medicine
  • Why communication breakdowns can feel like neglect — but usually aren’t
  • The illusion of perfection in fertility treatment
  • How empathy and understanding can bridge the gap between patients and providers

Whether you’re a patient, provider, or simply curious about what it’s like behind the scenes of fertility medicine, this episode will change the way you see your care team forever.

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.

Today, we talk about something that doctors rarely say out loud. That we have feelings, too. I'm, Dr. Mark Amols, and this is Taco about Fertility Tuesday. For this episode, I'm stepping out behind the microscope and the white coat to talk about something a little different. What it feels like to be on this side of fertility care. I'm going to talk about the motions we carry, the burnout that comes with medicine today, the gaps that patients often don't see, and why, despite all that, we keep showing up. Because we're not just doctors. We're people who care deeply. And helping you build your family is what we want to do. And sometimes that weight can get heavy. I know this isn't the typical episode, but I think having a glimpse into the human side of fertility care can be eye opening. The weight we carry, when the patient's cycle doesn't go the way we hoped, we feel it, too. We remember your story, your embryo. We remember the day of the transfer. We replay the steps in our head, saying, did I miss something? Should I have changed the dose? Could I have caught something earlier? Even when every box was checked, the science was right and nature simply said no. It doesn't make it easier, because fertility medicine isn't math. It's hope mixed with biology. And biology doesn't always follow the rules. My wife can tell right away when I come home and I look like I'm carrying burden as weight. And I know as patients, it seems like. Well, they have so many patients. They don't. They don't probably even recognize me. But I can assure you we do. I can guarantee you, and I speak for all doctors. We always care. I can assure you no one would be a doctor and go through all the schooling, come to work every day and not care. That doesn't mean some doctors aren't, let's say, good at bedside matters. It doesn't mean some doctors are not good teachers. But the one thing I can truly tell you is they would not be there if they didn't care. And I can assure you they carry that weight because I talk to these doctors and we're in Facebook groups, and it's hard. Sometimes we wish we could make everyone pregnant and that we've never let anyone down. The burnout factor. Here's the part most people never see. Medicine today isn't just about helping people. It's about documenting every single detail to prove that we actually did something. You might have sat down in the office for 45 minutes, pouring your heart out, and then later, you Read the note and think, that's it. Two paragraphs. Did he not listen to me? Unfortunately, it's because you have to fit that entire conversation into a format that satisfies insurances compliance and coding and unfortunately, not compassion. It's not that they didn't listen, but it's just there wouldn't be enough time for them to put every piece of information down. That disconnect is one of the biggest reasons so many good doctors burn out. We go into medicine to help people, not to type about helping people. And when we finally sit down the chart, long after you've gone home, we're still thinking about you. But our time is spent checking boxes instead of connecting hearts. Matter of fact, one of the greatest things about AI is that soon we're going to be able to spend more time with patients and less time with documentation. The REVIEW Dilemma now let's talk about the elephant in the room. Online reviews. When you're heartbroken, disappointed or angry, or understand the urge to tell your story. But sometimes those reviews feel like being judged not for our care, but for an outcome we couldn't control. See, in fertility, we can do everything right and yet still get the wrong results. A negative test doesn't mean your doctor failed you. It means nature just didn't cooperate this time. But I promise you this. Your doctor, your nurse, your embryologist, we're feeling it too. We root for you, we celebrate when you succeed, and we ache when you don't. And we read those reviews, we remember those words, and sometimes they stick with us longer than you can imagine. I'm not saying that reviews are bad and that only good reviews should be placed. What I'm saying is, just remember that there are humans behind those reviews. And sometimes some of those reviews don't even represent what actually happened, but more about how it felt. Unfortunately, when that's conveyed, it doesn't come off that way. And the doctors, nurses, embryologists in the team can feel like they're being judged for bad care when they actually tried their hardest. Doesn't mean the hardest was perfect, but they definitely gave it their best. When communication breaks down, another part that gets lost is communication. Sometimes patients will say, I left the message and no one called me back. But what they don't know is the voicemail cut off halfway through, or the fax we received was blank, or your message got garbled by the phone system and we couldn't make out a single word. We weren't ignoring you. We just can't fix what we don't know. And when we do find out, we usually feel awful that you felt unheard. That's why we always encourage patients. If something feels off, call us again, message again, talk to someone, because we want to make it right. I can almost guarantee you that there is no clinic that will not get back to you. And at any point you think they're not, I can almost assure you there's something that broke down. Not because they don't care, but because communication is imperfect. Sometimes we connect dots that aren't always there. I'll give you example where I had a patient write a review that was upset and thought I didn't care about her endometriosis. She assumed that I didn't look over her records, yet I did. But both of us had different perspectives. I was under the impression that when we left the appointment, we had a plan. And then when the nurses asked me a question from the patient, I thought the patient was asking to change the plan. I assumed that the doctor was giving the patient recommendations and the patient thought I was just switching the plan up. But in reality, we both just misunderstood. Communication broke down. But unfortunately, she wrote a review saying that I don't care and I don't care about her and that people with endometriosis shouldn't see me. I actually reached out to her, to her husband, sent them emails, tried calling them, and not a single reply back. And I even told them, I don't even care if you reply back. I just want you to know that's not true. Why would I go through all that trouble? Because I'm not just a doctor. This is a relationship. If your family member thought that you hated them, wouldn't you go out of your way to make sure to know that, hey, I don't hate you? Well, it's no different for doctors. And unfortunately, we get a loud mechaphone telling us how we did something bad. And unfortunately, we have no way to reach out. Sometimes I didn't even care about the review. I just wanted her to know that wasn't true. The illusion of perfection. In fertility care, everything feels high stakes. And it is. But sometimes we see patients carry this unbearable weight that if one small thing goes wrong, one blood draw is an hour late, one medication is off by a few minutes, it's all over. That's not true. Pregnancy doesn't hinge on perfection. It hinges on probability. Yeah, we may aim for perfection, but small variations, the kind that makes patients panic, rarely determine success or failure. And part of our job is helping you let go of that pressure. I know it's scary when someone might give you a different piece of information. You start to worry is there something else going on here? And this is not an excuse, it's just important to understand that nothing is perfect. But there are some things that we try to be more perfect about because there are higher stakes. Just like at the car dealership. The cars need to be working well for safety reasons, but the pop when maker doesn't. Well, the same thing in clinics. The lab's important, the embryologist making sure names are correct. And yes, sometimes someone might accidentally call you the wrong name because you might be similar to someone and they made a mistake. But don't let that scare you too much. What you should do in that situation is ask questions so you can feel comfortable. But realize that doesn't mean the lab is going to make a mistake because nothing's perfect. And small things, although they seem like those should be perfect if the high stake things are going to be perfect, they're not always Burnout, Humanity and Hope the truth is, burnout in medicine isn't just about the long hours. It's about emotional overload. We don't clock out at 5pm and forget about our patients. We take you home in our thoughts. We wonder how your beta turned out. We worry if you're okay after bad news. But here's the thing. We wouldn't trade it in. Because behind every heartbreak there is a story of hope. And the day we stop feeling, we stop being doctors. A call for empathy. So here's my before you leave a review, before you assume we didn't care, please reach out. Talk to us. We're listening. We're human. We're doing our best in a system that sometimes makes that hard. Medicine isn't perfect. Doctors aren't perfect. But our hearts are always in the right place. And when you succeed, when we call you with that positive pregnancy test, I promise you, every person on our team is smiling, sometimes even crying, and always remembering why we do this. So next time you see your doctor, your nurse, your embryologist, your medical assistant, remember, they're not just part of your care team, they're part of your story. We're not immune to emotions. We're just better at hiding them. We celebrate with you, we agree with you. And we never stop trying, even when the outcome hurts. I'm not immune from this. There have been many times I've thought about just hanging it up. It's hard to come every day and smile and love what you

do. And then at 4:

00am, a patient rips you Apart on a review because they think you did something wrong when you didn't. And unfortunately, what they thought was wrong wasn't. I remember this review where a patient I seen in three years who we got pregnant wrote this horrible review, and I couldn't understand it. I haven't seen them in three years. I got them pregnant. And this was probably one of the most difficult pregnancies you could imagine. It was such a difficult fertility case that most places wouldn't even try. And she was upset and said that I disregarded her and that we ignored her. Now, without getting to the details, in the end, I explained her that, no, I wasn't disregarding you. I believed in you. I wasn't telling you not to use certain things. I was trying to encourage you to use your own inks. Which I was right. It worked. And then when I proved her and showed her by going to the extent of calling her lawyer and everyone showing her that we never received any messages, which her lawyer even said and proved her that we actually did reach out once we found out and that everything she thought wasn't true, she still said, well, that's how I felt. And I get that. I get that's how she felt, but none of it was true. And I said to her, but do you know how we feel when we didn't actually do anything wrong? But you thought we did. And that even though we got you this miracle pregnancy, even that I proved you that we never did any of the things you thought we did, you would still leave a review that says these things that we did that we never did. And I'll tell you, that was hard. I thought, how could someone care so little about us? And that one hurt. And there's been others. Now, I'm a strong person, and just like anything hurts, then you move on. But it doesn't mean that you forget. And so, yes, when you're hurting, you should speak to your team. Never assume that they're ignoring you. Never assume that they don't care. Take the time to reach out. Again, all I ask is when you write those reviews, be constructive. And remember, there are still humans that run that clinic, and those humans also have feelings. I hope everyone takes this podcast for what it is. It's not a podcast saying you shouldn't write reviews. And he's not trying to say that there can't be things that clinics do wrong. I just think it's important for you to know that we definitely are not robots. We definitely have emotions, and we always feel bad. Even when you feel things that didn't really happen, such as not being heard and it was really more of a miscommunication. I can almost always assure you the people working there care and that if you think you're not being heard, if you think that they don't care, I promise you, reach out, escalate it, talk to their office manager, talk to the doctor. But I can almost assure you it is some type of problem where it's a communication breakdown, where there's illusion of perfection or a misunderstanding. I hope you like this podcast and got a chance to look into the feelings of the fertility clinic and the doctors that run it. And it's always important to be an advocate for yourself, but it's also important to know we all are humans and we all have feelings. If you like this podcast, as I always say, give us a five star review on your favorite medium. Tell your friends about us, but most of all keep coming back. I look forward to talking again next week on Taco Belt Fertility Tuesday.

Head Shot

Mark Amols, MD

Host