Janis H. Fox, MD

About

Most of the physicians she works beside trained inside the building where she now sees patients. Janis H. Fox, MD did not. She took her medical degree at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in 1984, went to Yale University School of Medicine for obstetrics and gynecology residency through 1988, then returned to Mt. Sinai Medical Center for the reproductive endocrinology and infertility fellowship she finished in 1990. Her board certification in obstetrics and gynecology is recorded in 1991 and 1995. For a patient who wants a second opinion from outside the Brigham training lineage, that path is the point.

Her clinical interests read like the third-party reproduction end of a fertility program rather than its surgical end. Alongside IVF and general infertility, her profile names oocyte donation and gestational carrier work, male factor infertility, polycystic ovarian syndrome, LGBTQ+ health and assisted reproductive technology. That is an unusual pairing in one physician — donor eggs and donor uteruses on one side, semen analysis and ICSI decisions on the other — and it fits the couples most likely to need a program rather than a protocol: two women, one carrying and one providing eggs; a male-factor couple facing ICSI; a patient with no ovarian function who needs a donor cycle; a gestational carrier pregnancy where the embryos come from the intended parents.

She is Harvard Medical School faculty within Brigham and Women’s obstetrics and gynecology and reproductive biology department, and has practiced reproductive medicine since 1990 in a center that states every service, without exception, is open to single individuals and to couples regardless of gender or sexual orientation.

Clinical Expertise

• Donor egg IVF: Cycles using designated donors the patient knows and anonymous donors, for premature ovarian failure, absent or non-functioning ovaries, prior chemotherapy or radiation, repeated treatment failure, and carriers of genetic disease who want to avoid transmission.
• Gestational carrier programs: Cycles where intended parents’ own eggs and sperm create the embryos and a screened carrier carries them, with agency selection, separate legal counsel and a pre-birth order to establish parentage.
• Male factor infertility: Semen analysis interpretation, ICSI for severe low count or prior fertilization failure, and evaluation of azoospermia including genetic workup, with testicular sperm extraction available in the same department.
• PCOS: Ovulation induction and IVF in hyperandogenic anovulation, where the clinical problem is achieving a response without ovarian hyperstimulation.
• LGBTQ+ family building: Reciprocal IVF, known donor arrangements and therapeutic donor insemination using FDA-screened bank sperm.
• IVF with PGT-A and egg freezing: Blastocyst genetic screening and cryopreservation, whether for elective deferral or before a treatment that threatens fertility.

Why Choose Dr. Janis Fox

Third-party reproduction is on her interest list, not just her clinic’s services menu. Donor egg and gestational carrier cycles are the two most administratively complex things a fertility center does — agency paperwork, screening of a third person, separate attorneys, a court filing. Having a physician who lists them as clinical interests means the medical and legal timelines get planned together.

She covers both halves of a couple. Male factor infertility and PCOS appear together in her interests, which matters for the common case where neither partner has a single clean diagnosis and splitting the couple across two physicians loses the interaction.

Two independent 2022 recognitions. Boston Magazine Top Doctor and Castle Connolly America’s Top Doctors, both recorded for 2022. Neither measures outcomes; check the center’s SART figures for that. Together they indicate peer and regional recognition outside the hospital.

A Boston practice built on outside training. Fellowship at Mount Sinai and residency at Yale, then a career in Harvard Medical School faculty practice — the perspective of someone who learned the field in two other programs.

Professional Affiliations

Harvard Medical School faculty in the Brigham and Women’s Hospital obstetrics and gynecology and reproductive biology department. Certified by the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology in obstetrics and gynecology, dates recorded 1991 and 1995, after residency at Yale University School of Medicine and a reproductive endocrinology and infertility fellowship at Mt. Sinai Medical Center completed in 1990. Named a Boston Magazine Top Doctor and included in Castle Connolly America’s Top Doctors for 2022. She practices within a Center for Infertility and Reproductive Surgery that is a Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology member, reports cycles annually to the CDC, and runs a dedicated egg donor and gestational carrier program with its own administrative and insurance staff.

Suitable For

• Lesbian couples planning reciprocal IVF: One partner’s eggs, the other’s pregnancy, with the legal parentage question answered by pre-birth order rather than left to postnatal paperwork.
• Single patients pursuing parenthood: Donor sperm insemination or donor egg IVF, in a program with no marital-status or orientation restriction.
• Couples with a male factor diagnosis: ICSI decision-making from a physician who lists male factor infertility as a standing interest.
• Patients with no working ovarian function: Diminished reserve, premature ovarian insufficiency, post-chemotherapy amenorrhea — the donor egg conversation, including genetic-risk reasoning for carriers.
• Intended parents using a gestational carrier: Screening, agency selection and the medical side of a carrier cycle.
• PCOS patients who have been over-stimulated before: Protocol and monitoring questions in a program that treats hyperstimulation in its own inpatient system.