Darcy Broughton, MD, FACOG

About

Darcy Broughton came home to Washington State to do this work. A Bremerton native who trained in Rhode Island, Oregon and Missouri, she joined Pacific Northwest Fertility in 2018 after finishing her reproductive endocrinology fellowship at Washington University in St. Louis. In 2021 she co-founded PNWF’s Center for LGBTQ+ Fertility, the first clinic in the Northwest dedicated to queer family building.

She also has the publication record to back that program up. Broughton authored one of the small number of published studies on IVF outcomes in transgender and nonbinary patients — research that matters because most fertility data is collected on a narrow model of who receives treatment. Her fellowship work pointed the same way: she studied the effect of Zika virus on the ovary, and the paper won the Pacific Coast Reproductive Society’s prize research project award in 2018.

The personal detail on her clinic page is unusual. Broughton is a single mother, and her child was conceived through a PNWF IVF cycle. Her clinical interests reach past that cycle, too — during fellowship she helped run an interdisciplinary clinic for patients with polycystic ovary syndrome, and she says she has kept that chronic-condition work close ever since. She serves as REI faculty site lead for Swedish’s OB/GYN residency and sits on the board of the Seattle Gynecologic Society.

Clinical Expertise

• LGBTQ+ Family Building: Co-founded PNWF’s dedicated center; reciprocal IVF, donor sperm and donor egg paths, and gestational carriers
• Transgender and Nonbinary Fertility Preservation: Published researcher on IVF outcomes in these patients
• PCOS: Ran an interdisciplinary PCOS clinic in fellowship; long-term management alongside conception attempts
• Single Parent by Choice: Donor-based family building for patients without a partner
• IVF and Reproductive Endocrinology: Double board-certified; stimulation protocols and cycle management

Why Choose Dr. Darcy Broughton

She founded the program, so the pathway is not theoretical. PNWF’s Center for LGBTQ+ Fertility has existed since 2021 because she and Dr. Stephanie Rothenberg built it. Queer family building means sequencing decisions — whose genetics, whose uterus, when to bank sperm or eggs, how parentage is documented in Washington State — and a center founder has worked through all of them repeatedly.

She has published on the exact population she treats. Most reproductive endocrinologists who describe themselves as LGBTQ+-friendly have never reported an outcome series on transgender or nonbinary patients. Broughton has, and it is one of very few such studies. If you are weighing whether to bank gametes before starting hormone therapy, that distinction changes what your physician can tell you about expected yields.

She chose the same route she offers. Her own child came from a PNWF IVF cycle, and she is raising that child alone. Patients who feel uneasy about explaining a non-traditional family to a clinic often find the practical part of the visit goes faster when the doctor does not need the situation described to her.

PCOS gets continuity, not just a stimulation protocol. She ran an interdisciplinary PCOS clinic during fellowship and names chronic-condition management as a standing interest. PCOS care spans insulin metabolism, ovulation induction and long-term health, which means the physician managing your cycles may also be the one following you for years.

She was an administrative chief resident and a teaching award winner. At Oregon Health and Science University she served as Administrative Chief Resident and received the Chief Resident Teaching Award — a role given to residents who run a program, not simply complete it. She now leads REI teaching for Swedish’s residents.

Professional Affiliations

American Society for Reproductive Medicine, LGBTQIA+ Special Interest Group; board of directors, Seattle Gynecologic Society; Pacific Coast Reproductive Society; American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists; Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society. Honors include the PCRS Prize Research Project (2018), the OHSU Chief Resident Teaching Award, Brown’s Gold Humanism Honor Society and Saphier Prize for original contribution to obstetrics and gynecology, and Summa Cum Laude graduation from Mount Holyoke College.

Suitable For

• Lesbian couples planning a pregnancy: Reciprocal IVF, donor sperm and the legal sequencing of parentage are the daily work of the center she founded
• Transgender and nonbinary patients considering preservation: She is one of the few physicians publishing IVF outcome data on these patients
• Single parents by choice: A path she has taken herself, at this clinic
• Families building with donor eggs or donor sperm: Matching, screening and cycle design inside one program
• PCOS patients who want long-term management, not one cycle: Interdisciplinary clinic training and a stated continuing focus