With the rise in infertility cases across the globe, the demand for trained experts is also increasing. However, the question is whether we have enough trained specialists? In this article, we cover why and how pursuing a Fellowship in ART and Reproductive Medicine in India is great career option for you and address few frequently asked questions regarding the same topic.

Why to choose a career in Reproductive Medicine?

Here’s what our doctor says: “I chose fertility mainly because I want to escape from OBS. I thought fertility is more, you know, 9 to 5 job and I can take care of my kids and I can take care of my personal life, everything. But then unfortunately that is not even true.”

All the other subspecialties like urogynaecology or laparoscopy or cosmetic gynaecology, you need not be certified to practice. You can boost up interest in that field and you can work with your seniors or you can work in a hospital where they routinely do these procedures and you can be a urogynaecologist or laparoscopist. But the recent rules in fertility specifies that a fellowship in reproductive is required.

If you want to do a fellowship in embryology or reproductive medicine, to be frank, there is Medline Academics’ hybrid and fulltime fellowship program. Often patients come with unexplained fertility and it accounts nearly 30 percentage to 40 percentage. So, to understand the scenario, formal education is must. Medline Academics’ short term and long-term courses in Reproductive Medicine gives formal training to doctors willing to specialize in this field and update their knowledge. This institution has been running courses for 40 years and have multiple experts to train the mentees. In addition to the educational vertices, it also has a clinical portion – Dr. Kamini Rao Hospitals, under same management.

What is the difference it makes in the pay scale in the current scenario?

This is a super speciality. So, obviously, there is going to be an increase in your pay scale.

What is the scope for a private practice?

If you want to become a fertility specialist, an individual practitioner and you want to start your own fertility, the investment is huge. It's very, very huge.

You can just have interest in that field and you can work with your seniors or you can work in a hospital where they routinely do these procedures and you can be a urogynaecology or laparoscopist. But the recent rules in fertility, they have said that you have to do a fellowship.

You have to practice fertility, you have to do fellowship because there are a lot of controversies going around this? So, you have to do a fellowship with hands on and clinical posting in IVF Centres. Students enrolled in Medline Academics, do not have to worry about this as they have the option to do their clinical attachment in Bangalore’s best IVF Centre - Dr. Kamini Rao Hospitals. Students not only get observership with senior doctors, but also hands on under expert supervision. So, when a student is enrolled in Medline Academics’ Fellowship in Infertility, they not only get theoretical knowledge, but also practical exposure.

It is not in government colleges and private colleges, as you know, you have to shell out your money. So, whether it is worth to do a MCH degree and then coming into fertility or fellowship is enough, that we never know because MCH, they spend an extra one year, okay, for which you need to spend a crore, right? Whereas, fellowship can do it within 10 lakhs and you do it in one or two years and almost the same subject, everything is the same. Probably, MCH, they have much experience in the terms of surgery and all, but the decision to do whether MCH or fellowship has to be decided by that individual student.

If you can shell out some money and you can go into MCH. Otherwise, if you feel you can do only fellowship, fellowship is more than enough. Apart from that, Medline Academics’ fellowship, is recognised by NMC.

If the patient comes with pregnancy, it is not a disease. It's like you have to manage the complication which arises, that's all. There is so much of counselling and so much of, if something wrong happens, there is so much of counselling, which you should do to the patient. So, when you're in the work, you should be completely stress-free. You should not have any personal things which is going around.

So, obviously, there is going to be an increase in your pay scale. In most of the corporate, they give 80,000, starting as a registrar. As you enter as a registrar, after completing your ops, they are giving 80, and they are slowly increasing. So, if you're going to be as a consultant, you're going to increase as a consultant, probably, it is around 1.5, I think, as a junior consultant, I'm talking about the corporate and the medical colleges.

If a person doesn't have a private college, it's a private practice, he or she is in a private college, and he or she is going to increase stepwise in their field, first as a registrar, then as a junior consultant and a consultant. So, registrar, they start at 80,000, junior consultant till 1.5, they go. And as a consultant, they pay in terms of case basis. This is what is happening in most of the corporate and the medical colleges. And infertility, again, as pressure you come, probably pressure itself, they start with 1.5. And after that, here, there is no junior consultant.

After the ART rules, each and every doctor who is practicing fertility, who wants to practice IVF should have done a fellowship. Okay, if they have not done a fellowship, that is, there must be, you know, senior doctors or the doctors who have been already practicing, right? They should submit to the government that they clearly have done at least 50 egg pickups, we call the egg, you know, the picking up the oocyte retrieval we say, egg pickups, there should be at least 50 egg pickups, and they should have a document clearly mentioned that or they should have worked at least for three years in one of the fertility centers. Otherwise, for newcomers, you cannot practice fertility without having a fellowship.

If you have done a fellowship, your second question was, how will be the private practice?

See, the same like, like that of the other fields, you have to sit in a place, your business is not going to improve immediately, it might take one or one year or two years, three or five years, you have to sit in a place. If you're lucky, it might improve in one year. But unfortunately, the investment for an IVF is exhaustive. Okay, you might have to, you know, spend at least two crores, okay, for setting up the lab, the building and all the other expenses and all. So the investment part is very high. Like the other things, you know, ops or even cosmetic gynaecology, I say, the other field, the investment is not that much, you just need to sit and you have to be sincere to your time, that's all, to gather the patient. But here, that timeline is very less for us, because it's very difficult to, you know, we'll be, somebody will be having loans, and we have to repay that.

Yeah, that's good information. Regarding, like what's your comment on the scope of infertility practices in secondary cities and towns, ma'am, like what is the scenario now? Do you have any idea? Infertility is increasing trend in India. Actually, they have said that out of five couples, one is infertile. And probably in the next five years, out of five couples, two will be infertile. So almost like 50% of the couples should seek infertility treatment only, that's how, that's what the statistics says. So almost in small towns, even the, you know, suburbs and all, they will definitely, you have much, much, much higher scope than the city, because in city you have infertility centres every street.Whereas in towns and the suburbs and all, you don't have fertility centers. So if you are a doctor practicing there, you can just do a, you know, analysis of the area and can start right away, there is nothing wrong. In the city only you have to think about it, in the city.