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About
Isabelle P. Ryan, MD is the Medical Director of Pacific Fertility Center, the physician who sets clinical standards for the San Francisco practice and has done so since joining in 1999 — she arrived the year the current center was established, and her title has carried the egg bank with it. She is board-certified in Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility and completed both her OB/GYN residency and her REI fellowship at UCSF, where she pioneered research on endometriosis and its effect on fertility. Her medical degree is from UC Davis.
Beyond her own patient panels, Ryan directs PFC’s Third-Party Parenting program and serves as medical director of Pacific Fertility Egg Bank — Northern California’s first frozen donor-egg program, per the clinic — meaning the physicians who oversee donor screening, vitrification, and recipient cycles answer to her. Peers have voted her a Castle Connolly Top Doctor continuously from 2010 through 2026, and she has received the Exceptional Women in Medicine Award every year from 2019 through 2026. She is a New York native who spent part of her childhood in France and studied in China during her undergraduate years, a background the clinic leans on with its international patient population.
Clinical Expertise
- IVF across the treatment spectrum: egg freezing, conventional IVF, and PGT-A-tested frozen transfers, with 25-plus years of cycle management at the same practice
- Endometriosis-associated infertility: the research topic she pioneered during her UCSF fellowship years, carried into clinical management of the condition
- Donor egg programs: medical direction of the egg bank that the clinic describes as the largest independent bank in Northern California, from donor selection through recipient synchronization
- Gestational surrogacy and third-party building: oversight of the legal-medical coordination that California surrogacy cycles require
- International third-party reproduction: cycle planning for patients conceiving from across the Pacific and Europe
Why Choose Dr. Ryan
The director runs your cycle. At most clinics a medical director’s panel is administrative; at PFC the person who directs the egg bank and third-party parenting program also sees patients — a consideration if donor eggs or a gestational carrier are part of your path.
Thirty years on one call list. Her Castle Connolly Top Doctor run — 2010 through 2026, seventeen consecutive years — is peer-voted, not paid placement, and unusually long for a single practice.
Endometriosis science behind the surgery-free management. Her UCSF research on how endometriosis damages fertility informs how she stages treatment for patients with the condition, from suppression strategies through IVF.
Professional Affiliations
Board-certified in Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility. Medical Director, Pacific Fertility Center, San Francisco, since joining the practice in 1999. Residency and REI fellowship, University of California, San Francisco; MD, University of California, Davis. Recipient, Exceptional Women in Medicine Award, 2019-2026.
Suitable For
- Patients using donor eggs or a gestational carrier whose cycle will be governed by program-level medical oversight
- Women with endometriosis planning IVF or egg freezing
- Patients over 40 weighing the center’s reported 39.7% live birth rate per transfer at 41-42 (SART 2023)
- International patients who want the practice’s most senior physician mapping a third-party reproduction path