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About
Duke Fertility Center builds its care team around a psychologist from the start — the staff roster for a first appointment lists physicians, nurses, an embryology team, a financial coordinator and a psychologist, all in one place. Stephanie Schuette, PhD is one of the clinical psychologists working inside that model, which means the emotional side of treatment is handled by someone on the team rather than an outside referral you have to find and schedule yourself.
Her training was shaped precisely for this setting: a PhD in clinical psychology from Duke (2023), a clinical health psychology residency at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago (2022-2023), and fellowship training at Duke in reproductive and perinatal psychology — a subspecialty named for exactly the population she serves, people trying to conceive, in treatment, and pregnant afterward.
She focuses on the social and emotional challenges infertility creates: for individuals and for couples, at the points where treatment grinds hardest — after failed cycles, and across the stretch from trying to conceive into pregnancy.
Clinical Expertise
- Support during active treatment: Coping work for individuals and couples moving through IUI, IVF and the monitoring calendar around them
- After unsuccessful cycles: Adjustment and decision-making support for patients facing another try, a change of path, or stopping
- Perinatal psychology: Emotional support spanning the attempt to conceive and the pregnancy that may follow — the perinatal half of her fellowship training
- Integrated care with the medical team: Consultation inside the fertility practice, so psychological and medical plans stay consistent
Why Choose Dr. Schuette
A psychologist who is already on the team. Her presence in the center’s standard care model removes the referral hurdle many patients never clear in the middle of a cycle.
Training matched to the waiting room. A Duke fellowship in reproductive and perinatal psychology means her specialty training is the same size as the patient population she sees.
Clinical health psychology roots. Her residency at Rush University Medical Center is the discipline of helping people manage genuine medical stressors — procedures, uncertainty, treatment fatigue — with evidence-based tools.
Professional Affiliations
Schuette is a clinical psychologist at Duke Fertility Center in Morrisville, a member clinic of the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology with a CAP-accredited laboratory. She holds a clinical psychology doctorate from Duke University, completed her residency at Rush University Medical Center, and took fellowship training in reproductive and perinatal psychology at Duke.
Suitable For
- Individuals and couples in the middle of treatment: Support that fits inside an active cycle rather than starting after it ends
- Patients after repeated failed attempts: Adjustment work for the hardest fork in fertility treatment
- Trying-through-pregnancy patients: Perinatal focus across the transition from treatment to expecting
- Families building through donors or surrogates: The center’s counseling program includes a third-party reproduction support group, and donor screening at Duke includes a psychological evaluation