Dr. Susanna J. Park

About

Born in Seoul, taken to Buenos Aires at age one, then moved to New York six years later — Dr. Susanna J. Park sees patients in English, Korean and Spanish, and that biography is the reason. She came to San Diego Fertility Center in 2012 after spending the first ten years of her career as a fertility physician at Columbia University in New York, a high-volume IVF center where she handled IUI, IVF, hysteroscopic corrective surgery, egg donation and gestational surrogacy.

Her training years were research-heavy. She worked on the mid-cycle gonadotropin surge and on the neuroendocrine changes of perimenopause, won her residency program’s research award three years running, plus the New York Obstetrical Society resident research award and the Organon Resident Research Award for Outstanding Research in Women’s Health. She held five years of grant funding through the ACOG/Solvay Pharmaceuticals Research Award in Menopause and a Pfizer/Society for Women’s Health Research scholars grant, publishing and presenting the results. Training ended in 2004 with an invitation to stay at Columbia as Assistant Professor; she became Assistant Clinical Professor in 2007.

What she chose to specialize in followed patient volume rather than academic fashion: IUI, IVF, hysteroscopic corrective surgeries, oocyte donation and gestational surrogacy. In San Diego she has kept the same mix, and the clinic describes her as working closely with LGBTQ+ patients on family building. She has built a referral practice that spans San Diego, the rest of the United States and international patients. San Diego Magazine has named her a Top Fertility Doctor seven years running, 2019 through 2025, an award built on nominations from local physicians.

Clinical Expertise

• IVF and IUI: the core of a decade at Columbia’s fertility service, and the two procedures she trained in the highest volume
• Hysteroscopic corrective surgery: a self-declared specialty — uterine septum, polyps, fibroids and scar tissue corrected before transfer, which is where several of her referral patients arrive
• Donor egg cycles: for advanced reproductive age, low egg supply, premature ovarian insufficiency, or same-sex male couples planning with a carrier
• Gestational surrogacy: carrier screening, lining preparation, transfer and first-trimester support, including agency-matched carriers
• Egg freezing and fertility preservation: vitrification for elective and medical indications, with later thaw, fertilization and transfer planning
• LGBTQ+ family building: donor sperm IUI in natural or medicated cycles, IVF, and known or banked donor sperm sourced through the clinic’s trusted sperm banks

Why Choose Dr. Susanna J. Park

A decade inside an East Coast academic IVF program before private practice. Columbia’s fertility service is where she built her procedure volume — IUI, IVF, hysteroscopic surgery, donor eggs, surrogacy — and where she was asked to stay on as faculty after training. She has been at SDFC since 2012, so the San Diego practice now runs about as long as the New York one.

Seven straight years of physician nominations. San Diego Magazine’s Top Fertility Doctor recognition, 2019 through 2025, is nominated by local physicians. That is a continuous streak rather than scattered years.

Three languages and a referral practice that travels with them. Korean and Spanish speakers can work through a whole cycle without an interpreter, and the clinic reports that over half of its patients come from outside the United States. Her referral base covers San Diego, the continental US and international patients.

Research funding, not just publications. Five years of grant support in menopause and women’s health research, with resident research awards in three consecutive years, is the profile of a physician who reads endocrine data carefully — relevant in a specialty where stimulation protocols change on published evidence.

Professional Affiliations

Member of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. Trained through 2004, then invited to remain at Columbia University as Assistant Professor and named Assistant Clinical Professor in 2007, where she worked as a fertility physician for the first decade of her career before joining San Diego Fertility Center in 2012. Research awards include the New York Obstetrical Society Resident Research Award and the Organon Resident Research Award for Outstanding Research in Women’s Health.

Suitable For

• Korean- and Spanish-speaking patients: three-language consultation across the full cycle, from consent to pregnancy test
• LGBTQ+ patients and couples: a physician with an established LGBTQ+ family-building practice, including donor sperm IUI and carrier paths
• Donor egg and surrogacy families: both procedures were part of her Columbia specialization and remain central at SDFC
• Uterine factors: recurrent loss or repeated transfer failure with a septum, polyps, fibroids or adhesions to correct first points to her hysteroscopic surgical background
• Egg freezing: elective preservation on a timeline, or preservation before medical treatment