The Specialty of Infertility

Abstract

Medical articles for the laity, as well as journals of medical education, deplore the modern tendency toward specialization. Much can be said for the criticism that the superspecialists, focusing their attention on one aspect or one organ system of their patients, often lose sight of the whole person. But the onus of overspecialization cannot be leveled at the physicians who devote themselves to the care of the infertile couple, for these physicians are concerned not only with the female organs of reproduction, but with the interplay of other endocrine systems as well as systemic disease on these organs, with the influences of the wife’s emotional state, with the fertility of her husband, and with the all important relationship between the two partners.