Catherine DeUgarte, MD

About

Dr. Catherine DeUgarte left Pacific Fertility Center Los Angeles once, and the way she came back is the most useful thing to know about how she practices. After years as assistant medical director at PFCLA she founded her own Los Angeles clinic, CMD Fertility, ran it for several years, and then returned to PFCLA with that same team — bringing a small-practice operating style, and the patient-following habits that come with owning a clinic, into a larger center.

Her training is Los Angeles-standard: a combined BA/MD program at Boston University School of Medicine, obstetrics and gynecology residency at UCLA, and a reproductive endocrinology and infertility fellowship jointly run by UCLA and Cedars-Sinai. Between the fellowship and her return to Los Angeles she held a senior attending position in reproductive endocrinology at Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, which is where much of her hard case volume came from. Her practice biography describes an award from the Pacific Coast Reproductive Society for work presented during fellowship on preimplantation genetic diagnosis, a service award recognizing care of cancer patients pursuing fertility preservation, and peer-reviewed publications in reproductive medicine; she has also served as a volunteer clinical instructor guiding residents and fellows at UCLA’s Olive View medical center.

She consults in four languages — English, Spanish, French, and Romanian — which is unusual enough in this field to change who can get a full history taken in their own words. Her clinical concentration is where IVF stalls: transfers that do not implant, and ovaries that recruit very few eggs on standard stimulation.

Clinical Expertise

• Recurrent implantation failure: reviewing embryo quality, transfer technique, uterine cavity findings, and immune and endocrine factors across multiple prior cycles before changing the next one
• Diminished ovarian reserve and poor response: modified and individualized stimulation protocols for patients who recruit one or two follicles, with honest counseling about expected yield
• IVF with PGT-A: embryo biopsy and chromosome screening decisions — when screening helps a case and when it only adds cost and waiting time
• Donor egg pathway: identifying when donor eggs offer better odds than another autologous cycle, and managing that transition
• Endometriosis-associated infertility: surgical history review, suppression strategy, and sequencing of IVF relative to endometriosis treatment
• Oncofertility: egg and embryo freezing before chemotherapy or radiation, including urgent start protocols
• PCOS: antagonist protocols and trigger choices that reduce hyperstimulation risk

Why Choose Dr. Catherine DeUgarte

She has run the whole building. A physician who has owned a clinic tends to answer the questions a patient would otherwise have to chase — who is monitoring, what happens if a weekend scan is needed, what the invoice covers.

Repeat-failure cases are her stated focus, not her overflow. Patients coming from two, three, or more failed cycles get a review of the previous stimulation records rather than an identical protocol restarted.

Academic pedigree with private-practice continuity. UCLA residency, UCLA/Cedars-Sinai fellowship, a Detroit academic attending post, then years of Los Angeles clinical practice in both a large center and her own clinic.

Volunteer teaching. Resident and fellow instruction at a UCLA-affiliated hospital keeps her protocols tethered to current literature rather than house habit.

Four languages at the bedside. Spanish, French, or Romanian, without an interpreter in the room for the parts of the history that matter.

Professional Affiliations

Board-certified in Obstetrics and Gynecology and in Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility. Her practice biography lists membership in the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the Pacific Coast Reproductive Society, along with a Pacific Coast Reproductive Society meeting award for preimplantation genetic diagnosis research and a community service award for fertility-preservation care of cancer patients. Peer-reviewed publications in reproductive endocrinology. Volunteer clinical instructor, UCLA at Olive View.

Suitable For

• Multiple failed transfers or negative β-hCG results: the case type she built her practice around
• Low egg yield on prior cycles: poor responder and diminished reserve protocol work
• Patients deciding on donor eggs: a physician who will name the point where switching beats retrying
• Cancer patients before treatment: urgent egg or embryo freezing
• Endometriosis-related infertility with surgical history: sequencing of surgery, suppression, and IVF
• Spanish, French, or Romanian-speaking patients: full consultation in language