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About
Two questions organize Hakan Cakmak’s practice, and both are lab-and-clinic questions rather than marketing ones: why does a good-looking embryo fail to implant, and why does a pregnancy start and then stop? He studies the molecular mechanisms behind implantation failure and miscarriage, and separately works on the clinical variables he can actually control — which stimulation protocol for which patient, and how to select the embryo to transfer.
His training path crossed two continents and three institutions. He took his medical degree at Cerrahpasa Faculty of Medicine in Istanbul in 2003, came to the United States for obstetrics and gynecology residency at Yale, finishing in 2011, and completed reproductive endocrinology and infertility fellowship at UCSF in 2014 — then stayed on the UCSF faculty, where he now holds an associate professorship. He is a member of both the American Society for Reproductive Medicine and the Society for Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility, the specialty’s academic society.
The third part of his job is in the operating room. He performs laparoscopic and hysteroscopic surgery on the structural causes of infertility and loss: endometriosis, ovarian cysts, pelvic adhesions, intracavitary fibroids, polyps and uterine septa. That combination is what makes him the physician a patient sees when the question is not whether to do IVF but why the last two attempts did not work. He consults in English and Turkish.
Clinical Expertise
- IVF and ICSI: protocol design and full cycle management, from stimulation and monitoring through retrieval, fertilization and transfer
- Stimulation protocol optimization: individualized dosing research and practice, matched to age, ovarian reserve and prior response
- Embryo selection: the laboratory and clinical decision of which embryo to transfer, including time-lapse and morphologic assessment
- Recurrent pregnancy loss: structured evaluation of genetic, anatomic, endocrine and immune contributors, with the molecular work informing how he reads them
- Implantation failure: evaluation of endometrial and embryonic causes before committing a patient to another cycle
- Minimally invasive reproductive surgery: laparoscopic surgery for endometriosis, ovarian cysts and pelvic adhesions; hysteroscopic treatment of intracavitary pathology
- PCOS management and fertility preservation by egg and embryo freezing
Why Choose Dr. Hakan Cakmak
He works the failure cases. Implantation failure and miscarriage are his stated research targets, so a patient with two negative β-hCG results or an early loss is not an anomaly in his panel — it is the subject of it.
Surgeon and prescriber in one person. Endometriosis or a septum found on imaging can be assessed, operated and then followed through the resulting cycle without handing the patient to a third party.
Academic rank that came from the same program. A Yale residency and a UCSF REI fellowship, then a UCSF associate professorship: he was trained inside the system where he now treats.
Turkish-language care alongside English, for patients who consent better and self-report better in their first language.
Professional Affiliations
Associate Professor, University of California San Francisco, practicing at the UCSF Center for Reproductive Health. Member of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine and of the Society for Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility. Board certified in obstetrics and gynecology with subspecialty training in reproductive endocrinology and infertility; MD, Cerrahpasa Faculty of Medicine, 2003; Yale OB/GYN residency, 2011; UCSF REI fellowship, 2014.
Suitable For
- Patients after a failed or empty cycle: protocol review is his research area
- Recurrent pregnancy loss: a systematic workup of anatomic, endocrine, genetic and immune factors
- Endometriosis and fibroids affecting fertility: surgery followed by the cycle that was the point of the surgery
- Egg or embryo freezing on a medical deadline
- Turkish-speaking patients
- PCOS patients whose ovulation induction has stalled on metabolic grounds