Lubna Pal, MBBS, FACOG, MD, MS, MSc, MRCOG

About

Polycystic ovary syndrome and menopause are usually handled by different doctors in different buildings. At Yale they share a director. Lubna Pal runs both programs, and the overlap is the medicine: a patient diagnosed with PCOS at 24 who conceives at 34 after two failed stimulation attempts is the same 51-year-old who arrives at a cardiologist’s office with metabolic risk, hot flashes and a story about a hysterectomy nobody asked her about twice. Her clinical focus is the endocrine arc — infertility, PCOS management, thyroid and vitamin D contributions to reproduction, and menopausal transition — rather than a single procedure.

She grew up in Pakistan in a medical household, her mother an obstetrician and her father a surgeon, and she has said that as a women’s health provider in a developing country you are not treating one woman but a whole family — an orientation she carries into how she describes her own practice. “You have to be genuinely present with them through the highs and the lows,” is her rule for fertility care, where the treatment calendar does most of the emotional work. She came the long route into American academic medicine: MBBS at Dow Medical College in 1988, fellowship training at Massachusetts General Hospital in 1997, obstetrics and gynecology residency at Yale-New Haven Hospital in 2001, further fellowship at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Medical Center in 2003, and an MS from Yeshiva University in 2006. Her Yale record does not name the fellowship subspecialty at either site.

Her research is registry- and trial-based rather than bench science. She is a collaborator on KEEPS, the Kronos Early Estrogen Prevention Study, and its long-term follow-up of menopause hormone therapy and cognitive function. Analyzing Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology clinic registry data, she and colleagues reported racial and ethnic differences in outcomes after single blastocyst transfer, one of the more consequential findings in the ART equity literature because it locates difference outside the embryo itself. She has published widely on vitamin D status and infertility treatment results in PCOS, on thyroid-reproductive interactions, and on PCOS pathophysiology, and holds ongoing NIH funding for PCOS and menopausal health work. She is certified by the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology in obstetrics and gynecology and is a member of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists; REI subspecialty certification is not stated in the record we hold, so confirm it with the clinic. She consults in English, Punjabi and Urdu and offers telehealth alongside in-person visits at Orange.

Clinical Expertise

• PCOS stimulation strategy — protocol choice to keep response controlled and hyperstimulation risk down, plus the metabolic and weight management that runs alongside it
• Insulin resistance, thyroid and vitamin D evaluation in infertility, where correcting an endocrine contributor changes the treatment plan
• Recurrent pregnancy loss with an endocrine driver, in collaboration with Yale’s multidisciplinary loss team
• Perimenopause and menopause management, including hormone therapy decisions informed by her KEEPS involvement
• IVF, ovulation induction and frozen embryo transfer for patients whose diagnosis is endocrine rather than tubal or male factor
• Fertility preservation counseling for patients deferring pregnancy for medical or personal reasons

Why Choose Dr. Pal

One physician across two life stages. Very few practices let the same doctor handle your PCOS infertility cycle and, twenty years later, your menopausal symptoms. If your history includes both, this continuity is unusual.

She leads the programs, not a clinic. Yale’s PCOS and menopause programs are both formally directed by her, which means protocol decisions and the trial enrolments that feed them come from the physician who sees you.

Equity research with a registry denominator. The SART data analysis on racial differences in single blastocyst transfer outcomes is the kind of work that changes counselling, and it is registry-scale rather than a single-clinic case series.

KEEPS, from the inside. Menopause hormone therapy questions are best answered by someone on the study that has followed the cognitive question longitudinally.

Three languages, including Punjabi and Urdu. For South Asian patients in Connecticut, an intake history in the language it happened in is not a convenience.

Professional Affiliations

American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology, certified in obstetrics and gynecology (FACOG). Member, Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (MRCOG). Her registry analyses and KEEPS collaboration place her work inside the American Society for Reproductive Medicine and Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology literature, though her Yale record does not itemise memberships. NIH-funded for PCOS and menopausal health research. Faculty, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, Yale School of Medicine, and director of its PCOS and menopause programs. REI subspecialty board certification is not recorded in the material reviewed.

Suitable For

• PCOS patients who have had a chaotic or hyperstimulated cycle elsewhere and need a different protocol conversation
• Women whose infertility has an endocrine or metabolic component — insulin resistance, thyroid disease, vitamin D deficiency
• Recurrent loss with a hormonal cause, where the loss workup and the endocrine management are the same job
• Perimenopausal and menopausal patients wanting symptom management informed by KEEPS rather than by anecdote
• Punjabi- or Urdu-speaking patients who want their history taken in the language of the original consultations