Soorin Kim, M.D., F.A.C.O.G.

About

Minimally Invasive Gynecologic Surgery is a subspecialty with its own board, entered only after obstetrics and gynecology residency — not a technique an OB-GYN picks up on the job. Soorin Kim holds that certification, and she completed both halves of the training at Yale School of Medicine: residency, then a MIGS fellowship she took on specifically to develop advanced skills in reproductive surgery. RMA notes that her passion for surgery was identified during those Yale years.

She is from New Jersey and did most of her pre-medical and medical training in the state — Rutgers College for a double degree in biology and visual arts, graduating with honors, then Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, where she finished near the top of her class. Research training began before that: she was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute medical research fellow at the University of Pennsylvania from 2012 to 2014, and was elected to Alpha Omega Alpha in 2013.

Her clinical and research focus is described in two qualifiers that are usually in tension: minimally invasive and fertility-sparing. Many standard gynecologic operations trade one reproductive organ or a section of uterus against the pathology; her declared direction is treating the disease while keeping the uterus and ovaries functional, and using laparoscopic and hysteroscopic routes to shorten the recovery in between. In 2018 the American Association of Gynecologic Laparoscopists gave her its Recognition of Excellence in Minimally Invasive Gynecology.

She has also published peer-reviewed work and presented at national meetings. And the art degree was not a hobby she abandoned — she considered a career as an artist before medicine.

Clinical Expertise

• Minimally invasive gynecologic surgery (MIGS): her board certification, practiced through laparoscopic and hysteroscopic routes for pelvic and uterine disease, with less adhesion formation and faster recovery than open surgery
• Fertility-sparing operative strategy: choosing the approach that treats the lesion while preserving uterine and ovarian function, which is a real constraint when the same pathology can be managed several ways
• Timing surgery against an IVF cycle: because she works inside a fertility practice, the questions of whether to operate, when, and how long until embryo transfer can be started are answered in one consultation
• Recovery and outcome management: RMA describes her clinical aims as a supportive patient experience, minimized recovery, and the best achievable outcome — the recovery interval being the part that consumes a patient’s fertile months
• Surgical evaluation of suspected uterine and pelvic factors: the second look at a case where medication adjustments have not produced a pregnancy

Why Choose Dr. Soorin Kim

A surgeon who operates inside the fertility practice. Outside a reproductive center, the sequence is: gynecologist sees a finding, refers to a surgeon, surgery elsewhere, then return to the IVF clinic with an operative report someone else has to interpret. At RMA, the person who would perform the operation is the person deciding whether one is needed — which reduces both the unnecessary surgery and the surgery that gets postponed.

Fertility-sparing is her stated research direction, not an afterthought. RMA describes her commitment as research focused on minimally invasive, fertility-sparing management. For a patient with a fibroid or an endometrioma who has not finished trying to conceive, that qualifier is the difference between two operative plans, and it is the axis on which she has built her practice.

She was formally recognized by AAGL in her field. The Recognition of Excellence in Minimally Invasive Gynecology comes from the American Association of Gynecologic Laparoscopists, the specialty organization for this surgical approach — an award specific to minimally invasive gynecologic work, awarded in 2018.

Yale residency and Yale fellowship, consecutively. Both training stages at Yale School of Medicine, with the fellowship entered deliberately to build advanced reproductive surgical skills. Academic MIGS programs are where the difficult anatomic cases — dense adhesions, prior failed surgery, congenital uterine anomalies — are the teaching material.

Research training that predates the clinical path. HHMI medical research fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania (2012-2014), Alpha Omega Alpha election in 2013, Magna Cum Laude at Rutgers College in 2008, and top-of-class standing at RWJ. She carries peer-reviewed publications and national meeting presentations alongside the surgical practice.

Professional Affiliations

Board-certified Minimally Invasive Gynecologic Surgeon and Fellow of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (FACOG). Training: Rutgers College (BA, Biology and Visual Arts, Magna Cum Laude, 2008), Robert Wood Johnson Medical School (MD), Yale School of Medicine (residency in obstetrics and gynecology, then fellowship in minimally invasive gynecologic surgery). Honors include the 2018 AAGL Recognition of Excellence in Minimally Invasive Gynecology, election to Alpha Omega Alpha (2013), and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute medical research fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania (2012-2014).

Suitable For

• A finding on imaging that may need fixing before transfer: fibroids, polyps, a septum, adhesions or an endometrioma — situations where no stimulation protocol works around the structure, and the question is whether surgery genuinely helps and how long it delays the cycle
• Wanting the organ preserved: for patients where hysterectomy or ovarian tissue loss would end the possibility of using their own gametes, her stated orientation is toward fertility-sparing approaches wherever they are oncologically and clinically adequate
• Counting weeks between surgery and cycle start: laparoscopic and hysteroscopic routes exist largely to compress that interval, and at a reproductive center the next step is scheduled in the same building
• Repeated implantation failure with a possible uterine or pelvic cause: some failures are structural, and need to be re-examined surgically rather than with another medication adjustment
• Wanting the operating surgeon to make the call on operating: the decision whether to have surgery carries a conflict of interest when made by someone who never holds the instruments