James M. Hotaling, M.D., M.S., FECSM

About

James Hotaling trains the urologists who come after him at RMA. Dr. Philip Cheng, the clinic’s other in-house urologist, completed his Genitourinary Reconstruction and Andrology fellowship at the University of Utah under Hotaling’s direction — Hotaling was on the Utah faculty as an Assistant Professor of Urology before joining RMA, and the fellowship he supervised there is the same subspecialty pipeline now staffed in Basking Ridge.

His own path crossed four schools. Dartmouth for biophysical chemistry and history, graduating with high honors in 2002; Duke for the MD in 2006; the University of Washington for internship and residency in surgery and urology, completed in 2012; and a fellowship in urology and andrology at the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2013. Folded into the residency years was an MS in epidemiology from the UW School of Public Health, finished in 2010.

RMA’s provider page describes him as the network’s first in-house urologist, a role created so that male infertility gets treated inside the same building as the rest of the cycle rather than sent out to a separate practice. He is one of the lead physicians of RMA Men’s Health. He is certified by the American Board of Urology and is a Certified Specialist of the European Committee of Sexual Medicine (FECSM).

Clinical Expertise

• Male infertility evaluation: he frames the causes as blockages, birth defects, and other abnormalities — three categories that lead to genuinely different treatments, which makes correct categorization the first job
• Semen analysis interpretation: distinguishing oligozoospermia, asthenozoospermia and azoospermia, and critically whether azoospermia is obstructive or non-obstructive, since that determines whether a couple can use their own genetic material
• In-house treatment of the male side: as a urologist embedded with the reproductive endocrinology team, he manages male-factor therapy without an outside referral
• Men’s health beyond the cycle: the program he leads is named Men’s Health, which puts hormonal, sexual function and urogenital issues in scope for men not currently in treatment
• Evidence appraisal: Associate Editor of Fertility & Sterility since 2016, with more than 100 peer-reviewed publications, abstracts and book contributions

Why Choose Dr. James Hotaling

Couples are evaluated in one place. RMA created the position so male infertility patients would not be bounced to an outside urologist, and states the purpose as streamlining that care. In a treatment measured in cycle starts, an external referral costs weeks and a copy of the record; here the findings land in the same chart the reproductive endocrinologist is reading.

The epidemiology degree changes how he answers “should I do this test.” Male fertility is crowded with supplements and semen-improvement regimens with thin evidence behind them. A physician who trained formally in study design and bias is better positioned to say which intervention has support and which is habit — and he is qualified to make that call rather than merely skeptical of it.

He reads submissions for one of the field’s top journals. Associate Editor at Fertility & Sterility since 2016. That seat sees data before it settles into guidelines.

Patents, not only papers. RMA records that he holds several patents related to reproductive medicine, alongside a national and international speaking record. Device and method work tends to come from clinicians who kept finding the existing tools inadequate.

Academic-center case mix. Before RMA he was an Assistant Professor of Urology at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, practicing as a board-certified urologist specializing in male infertility. Academic urology departments see the rare structural and congenital presentations that community practice does not.

Professional Affiliations

Certified by the American Board of Urology. Certified Specialist of the European Committee of Sexual Medicine (FECSM), a designation uncommon among North American urologists and mostly seen in those working at the sexual-medicine and reproductive intersection. He also holds DEA certification. Training: Duke University School of Medicine (MD), University of Washington School of Medicine (internship and residency in surgery and urology), University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine (fellowship in urology/andrology). Associate Editor, Fertility & Sterility, since 2016.

Suitable For

• Male factor in an ongoing infertility workup: if every test so far was run on the female partner and the man has never been examined by a urologist, that gap can redirect the whole plan
• Low count, motility problems, or azoospermia: obstructive versus non-obstructive azoospermia leads to different procedures and different answers about using your own sperm; getting that wrong wastes cycles
• Obstruction and congenital anomalies: the structural causes in his own framing of the field, and the ones needing a urologist rather than a reproductive endocrinologist
• Couples wanting joint evaluation: he works within RMA’s system, so both partners’ results go into one treatment discussion instead of the patient carrying information between offices
• Patients who ask what the evidence is: an Associate Editor with a population-health degree will engage that question with primary literature rather than practice convention