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My name is David Carnvale and I'm a reproductive endocrinologist and infertility specialist.
I'm also the medical director of Community Reproductive Endocrinology, the fertility
practice here at Community Health Network.
Reproductive endocrinology is a subspecialty of OBGYN, and as a reproductive endocrinologist
we first train as OBGYNs and then we do additional training to become a reproductive endocrinologist.
Many of the women that come to a reproductive endocrinologist are dealing with issues of
infertility, but we also deal with things such as endometriosis, polycystic ovarian
syndrome, problems with women who get pregnant but lose those pregnancies, and women who
have problems with issues related to the structure of their reproductive system. So we actually
do a fair amount of surgery in this field.
One of the things that I utilize in my work is something called a KTP laser. And this
laser is very specialized for the treatment of endometriosis. It allows us to treat in
areas that many times are unaccessible with other modalities.
One of the most powerful techniques we have in infertility treatment is In vitro fertilization.
And this is commonly known as the "test tube baby". This technique allows us to take a
woman's eggs and combine them with her husband's *** in the laboratory, and then take those
embryos that are generated and place them back up into a woman's uterus. Unfortunately
a lot of people think that this is something that's going to guarantee that they have multiple
births. In most cases that's not true. We can actually reduce the number of embryos
that we put back into a woman's uterus.
The actual procedure itself is done in the laboratory. We take the embryos in a catheter,
and we take that catheter and we can place it up inside of the woman's uterus and release
the embryos where we want them to be. So that gives us a lot of control over what happens
with that process.
So here we see a human egg being held in place, and the injection pipet bringing the ***
directly through the membrane called the Zona Pellucida and it's depositing the *** inside
here. So this actually bypasses the process where millions of *** would be on the outside
of the egg trying to penetrate inside. So for men who have a low *** count, this allows
them to have a genetic child whereas in the past they would have had to resort to donor
***. So this is a very important and powerful technique that we've had now for about 15
years.
One of the other things that's nice about this program is that I get the opportunity
to work with Dr. Jeffrey Boldt. And Dr. Boldt is actually one of the leading embryologists
in the country; the people who actually do the work in the laboratory that allows us
to do the In vitro fertilization process. Dr. Boldt has also been recognized as one
of the leaders in egg freezing technology. And this is something that is only provided
at a few centers around the United States. It's so unique, in fact, that we've been contacted
by a medical broker who has women in Japan interested in coming to Indianapolis to have
this technology used on them. And this would allow career women and other women who maybe
are facing chemotherapy or radiation therapy for cancer to preserve their eggs for later
use in life.
One of the things that our practice strives for is to reduce the stress and anxiety that
couples dealing with infertility experience. We want to be as user friendly as possible.
We want to be sure that everyone in our office is familiar with all the issues that these
patients are facing. And everyone on my team shares that philosophy. And this allows us
to ensure that all patients are treated with the utmost respect and dignity throughout
this process. We also have financial counselors who can help patients with ins and outs of
infertility coverage, which can be a real challenge for patients to negotiate without
guidance.
One of the things that we also provide to patients that come to our office is financial
counseling, because the insurance world with infertility is very difficult to understand
and presents a number of challenges. And we want to help patients to be sure that they're
making decisions that are based upon sound information so they know what is actually
covered and not covered. Many patients and doctors are under the misperception that infertility
is never covered. What we find is that many insurance companies will cover testing and
initial evaluation for infertility, and when it comes to treatment sometimes they'll even
cover that. But in a lot of cases the treatment itself is not covered.
The process for a referral to our practice is fairly simple; A phone call to our front
desk, and we'll take care of the rest. Our goal is to provide both the physicians referring
to our practice and patients an exceptional experience. We don't want them to hassle.
We'll take care of obtaining records. We'll make sure that everybody is aware of when
they need to be here and where we're located.
Myself and my office are available to patients pretty much 24/7, 7 days a week. And that's
one of the things in fertility medicine, we have to be because we never know when a woman
is ovulating and may need an insemination. So many times we'll be here on weekends as
well. Our regular office hours are Monday through Friday from 8 to 5 p.m. We also have
a website which has a great deal of patient information. And it's a great resource for
people looking for more details on what we provide. And that's CommunityFertility.com