Kara Goldman, MD

About

The word “oncofertility” was invented at this institution — Northwestern’s Teresa Woodruff put cancer treatment and reproduction on the same map in 2006. Kara Goldman now runs the preservation program at the place the term came from, as medical director for patients who need eggs, embryos or tissue banked before chemotherapy, radiation, hormone therapy or gender-affirming surgery closes the window.

Her own training path is Chicago-deep with two exits. BA at Duke in 2004, MD at Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine in 2008, an OB/GYN internship at Washington University in St. Louis, OB/GYN residency at Northwestern Feinberg in 2012, then a reproductive endocrinology and infertility fellowship at New York University in 2015. She returned to the Northwestern faculty as an associate professor.

The lab question behind her clinical work is time: how ovaries age, why reserve falls, and how much of that decline can be measured early enough to act on. She has said partnering with patients “in a warm and supportive environment” is the point of the practice, but the substance of her program is scheduling — preservation cycles have to fit inside someone else’s treatment calendar.

Clinical Expertise

• Egg (oocyte) freezing — roughly two weeks of stimulation, ultrasound-guided retrieval under mild sedation, immediate vitrification and long-term storage
• Embryo freezing — the same stimulation and retrieval, fertilized in the IVF lab and cryopreserved for a later transfer
• Ovarian tissue cryopreservation — surgical removal and freezing of ovarian tissue, offered here as an experimental option for patients who cannot delay treatment for stimulation
• Testicular tissue cryopreservation — experimental banking for pre-pubertal boys, plus TESE when a male patient cannot produce a semen sample
• Ovarian reserve assessment — antral follicle count, AMH, FSH and day-3 estradiol, the numbers that decide whether one retrieval or two is realistic
• Oncology coordination — the center keeps a dedicated fertility-preservation patient navigator for cancer patients and their treatment teams
• IVF, ICSI and PGT-A in the general program, including patients with diminished reserve

Why Choose Dr. Kara Goldman

She holds the director’s chair in the specific program you need. Northwestern’s preservation menu runs from standard egg freezing through two experimental tissue services, and a director means one physician accountable for the pathway from oncology consult to frozen vial.

Preservation in children costs nothing here. The center’s pediatric fertility-preservation service is free; families call the navigator line rather than a billing office.

She is funded to ask why ovaries age. Her research program is ovarian aging — the mechanism question behind every antral follicle count and AMH value she quotes in a consultation.

Eleven years since fellowship, most of them in this building. Residency at Northwestern, subspecialty training at NYU, then a return to the Feinberg faculty, where preservation patients are her named responsibility rather than an occasional case.

Professional Affiliations

American Society for Reproductive Medicine, whose science paper award she holds, and the Society for Gynecologic Investigation, which named her a Best New Investigator. Goldman is board-certified in Obstetrics and Gynecology, fellowship-trained in reproductive endocrinology at New York University, and an associate professor at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine, working in a division whose faculty and fellows run NIH- and Gates Foundation-funded translational projects in wet and dry labs.

Suitable For

A new cancer diagnosis, and treatment that cannot wait. Goldman’s program is built for the patient who needs a stimulation cycle slotted before the first chemotherapy infusion — egg, embryo or tissue, depending on how many days the oncology team will give.

Women freezing eggs as insurance rather than as a plan. Two weeks of injections, one retrieval, and storage; the consultation is about realistic yield at your age and AMH, which is the part patients usually have to drag out of a clinic.

Parents of a child facing gonadotoxic therapy — the free pediatric service, including testicular tissue banking before puberty.

Patients told their reserve is low, whose question is not whether to try but how many eggs a cycle is likely to produce, where her ovarian-aging background changes the conversation.

There is no published price list. Storage and cycle fees are quoted by financial counselors after benefits are checked, and 29 insurance plans are accepted; preservation cycles for non-medical reasons are usually out of network coverage entirely.