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About
Dr. Josette Dawkins spent years running Baystate Reproductive Medicine in Springfield as its medical director. When Boston IVF opened its Western Massachusetts practice in the same city, it effectively hired the person who had been setting that market’s standard. She keeps one foot in academia as an Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at UMass Chan Medical School - Baystate, teaching while she treats.
Her declared specialty focus is onco-fertility — protecting the fertility of patients about to undergo chemotherapy, radiation or surgery for cancer. It is a race-against-clock subspecialty: egg and embryo banking must happen, if at all, before gonadotoxic treatment starts, and often across a single cycle. Her case reports trace that intersection directly, including a published case of cervical cancer complicating pelvic organ prolapse where a pessary was used to restore anatomy for optimal radiation delivery.
Her own training path spans three countries: born in Montego Bay, Jamaica, she earned her MD at the University of the West Indies, completed OB/GYN residency at Rochester Regional Health in New York, and finished reproductive endocrinology fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania. She serves Springfield patients in person and offers telehealth consultations to patients in both Massachusetts and Connecticut — useful for western MA patients who live closer to Hartford than to Boston.
Clinical Expertise
- Onco-Fertility: Fertility preservation planning coordinated with oncology treatment timelines, her stated special interest
- IVF and ICSI: Full program coverage at Boston IVF’s Springfield center
- Female Infertility: Diagnostic workups across tubal, ovulatory, endocrine and uterine causes
- Reproductive Surgery Adjacency: Residency and case-report background in gynecologic oncology-adjacent problems
- Academic Medicine: UMass Chan faculty appointment; publication record in perinatal and gynecologic case literature
Why Choose Dr. Dawkins
She built the Springfield fertility service before Boston IVF arrived there. Patients in Western Massachusetts get the physician who already ran its leading reproductive program.
An oncology-aware fertility specialist. Few in this group name onco-fertility as their special interest, and hers is documented in published case work.
Professor and practitioner. Her UMass Chan assistant professorship means trainees learn from her and patients benefit from academic-case review habits.
Two-state access. In-person in Springfield; telehealth in MA and CT.
Professional Affiliations
Board-certified obstetrician and gynecologist with a reproductive endocrinology fellowship from the University of Pennsylvania. Assistant Professor at UMass Chan Medical School - Baystate. Publications span Obstetrics & Gynecology (ACOG abstract, 2019), Case Reports in Women’s Health, Gynecologic Oncology Reports and Surgical Technology International, with work on endometrial carcinoma after ablation, X-chromosome mutation phenotypes, and obstetric outcomes in immigrant patients.
Suitable For
- Newly diagnosed cancer patients: Preservation decisions before treatment — her named specialty
- Springfield, Pioneer Valley and northern Connecticut residents: The regional Boston IVF center, with a director-level pedigree
- Patients with layered gynecologic history: Fibroids, prolapse, prior surgery — her case-report territory
- Second-opinion seekers who prefer an academic physician’s documentation habits