Dr. Karen L. Lee, MD

About

Karen L. Lee came to Dallas from the academic side of this field. She was a clinical assistant professor in the reproductive endocrinology and infertility division at Duke University Medical Center before joining Dallas-Fort Worth Fertility Associates in August 2005, and she has now spent the majority of her career in this one practice. That combination — university division training, then nearly two decades of the same private IVF program — shows up in how she practices: she handles the operative work herself as well as the cycle, rather than sending anatomical problems out to a colleague.

Her training runs MIT (bachelor’s, Phi Beta Kappa), Harvard Medical School (MD, 1998), then Duke for ob/gyn residency and the REI fellowship. During Harvard’s health sciences and technology track she took an honors thesis award. Her fellowship research was recognized at national meetings, including a research award from the reproductive endocrinology and infertility society, and her publications in infertility appeared in peer-reviewed journals.

She sees patients at the Glen Lakes office in south Dallas, alongside the practice’s primary IVF laboratory. Her clinical range covers stimulation protocol design, cycle monitoring, retrieval, embryo transfer and the surgical procedures that sometimes need to happen before any of that — gonadotropin management, hysteroscopic and laparoscopic work, and fine microsurgery.

Clinical Expertise

• Stimulation protocol design and monitoring: individualized gonadotropin protocols aimed at egg number and quality, with ultrasound and hormone tracking through the cycle
• Egg retrieval and embryo transfer: procedures she performs herself in the on-site Glen Lakes laboratory
• ICSI: injection of a single sperm for severe male factor or poor fertilization in an earlier cycle
• Hysteroscopic and laparoscopic surgery: polyp removal, division of intrauterine adhesions, tubal surgery and excision of endometriosis before or between IVF attempts
• Recurrent pregnancy loss workup: chromosome, anatomic, immune and endocrine causes assessed as a set rather than one at a time
• Egg and embryo cryopreservation: vitrification for medical and elective preservation

Why Choose Dr. Karen L. Lee

An academic division background most Dallas practices do not carry. She was on faculty in Duke’s REI division — teaching, research and clinical care — before private practice, which is where the published work and the fellowship research award come from.

Twenty years inside one IVF program. Since August 2005 she has worked in the same practice, with the same laboratory team. Continuity between the physician setting your protocol and the embryologists executing it is not a soft benefit in IVF; it is how the cycle gets run.

Surgeon and cycle manager in one person. Patients with a polyp, adhesions or endometriosis can have the cavity or pelvis addressed by the physician who will then run their stimulation, instead of two referrals.

Professional Affiliations

Board-certified in reproductive endocrinology and infertility, with residency and fellowship training at Duke University Medical Center and an MD from Harvard Medical School. Member of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, and of a Dallas-area reproductive endocrinology society, per the practice’s professional listing. Recipient of a society research award for fellowship work presented at the ASRM annual meeting.

Suitable For

• IVF and ICSI patients with tubal disease, male factor or unexplained infertility who want one physician across consultation, retrieval and transfer
• Patients with a correctable uterine or pelvic finding, where surgery should happen before money is spent on stimulation
• Women planning elective egg or embryo freezing, including vitrification and a banked-embryo transfer later
• Recurrent pregnancy loss, where the workup needs an endocrine and immunologic sweep rather than another single cycle