Dr. Szu-Yu Shen

About

Dr. Szu-Yu Shen read medicine in Poland, at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Warsaw, and took advanced study afterwards at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Two national training systems therefore sit behind one set of clinic appointments, the second of them a Boston teaching hospital whose reproductive and gynecologic units carry substantial research activity. That combination is what puts preconception genetics — inherited-risk assessment, embryo screening, counseling — at the center of the practice rather than at its edge.

NUWA runs the genetics and inheritance work as its own named department, and the appointment is Director of Preconception Genetics, Attending Physician. The same post is also titled Director of Prenatal Carrier Screening, which names the narrower service: testing prospective parents for recessive and X-linked conditions before a pregnancy, so the result can inform whether embryos should be tested for that specific inherited condition before transfer. Housing this in a separate department means the genetic question is answered by a designated clinician instead of being raised opportunistically by whoever wrote the stimulation protocol.

The hospital years were built in Taipei. Attending physician in the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Taipei Wanfang Hospital, attending physician in the same department at Qixin Clinic, and research physician in the reproductive medicine center of Taipei Medical University Hospital. The first two are frontline general practice, where cycle-irregular and gynecologic disease present before anyone uses the word infertility; the third is the stage that sits between general obstetrics and gynecology and dedicated reproductive work, in a hospital unit that both treats patients and studies outcomes.

Clinical Expertise

• Preconception genetic counseling: inherited disease history in either family, consanguinity, previous abnormal pregnancies or a prior affected birth are reviewed before treatment, together with what preimplantation testing can actually detect and what it cannot.
• Infertility examination, diagnosis and treatment: the standard couple workup — ovulation, tubal patency, cavity and semen — and a treatment level chosen from the finding rather than from the number of months of trying.
• IVF: stimulation, monitoring, retrieval and transfer, with the decision about testing embryos before transfer settled during the planning visit rather than after the embryos exist.
• IUI: the lower-intensity rung, prepared sperm placed into the cavity near ovulation when the cause is ovulatory, mildly male-factor, or unexplained and the tubes are open.
• Egg freezing: vitrification of oocytes when childbearing is being deferred for medical, personal or scheduling reasons, or when eggs need to be banked before reserve falls further.
• Abnormal menstrual cycle: irregular, absent or anovulatory cycles traced to their endocrine cause, since cycle pattern is usually the first sign that ovulation is not happening and the commonest reason a consultation starts.
• Abnormal ovarian function: reserve estimated from AMH, antral follicle count and any previous response to stimulation, then used to set expectations for a protocol instead of assuming a standard one will work.
• Hysteroscopy and laparoscopic surgery: the cavity is inspected and corrected through the cervix for polyps, adhesions, septum and endometrial lesions; the laparoscopic route reaches disease outside it, so both compartments can be dealt with without a second operator.

Why Choose Dr. Shen

Genetics has a department, and a head. NUWA separates the inheritance and screening questions from cycle delivery, which means the physician answering whether an embryo test is indicated is not the same person improvising that judgment between protocol adjustments. Carrier testing and preimplantation diagnosis have different targets, different laboratory requirements and different costs, and this profile puts the decision in a named post.

A European medical degree plus United States advanced study. The Faculty of Medicine at the University of Warsaw and Brigham and Women’s Hospital represent two different training systems in one physician’s background. For patients consulting in English, this shows up in something practical: the treatment plan and its evidence can be discussed directly rather than relayed through an interpreter.

Research physician years in a hospital reproductive center. The Taipei Medical University Hospital appointment is the stage where cycle data and published literature are read together. Screening tests fail in specific, describable ways — a result that is falsely reassuring and a result that is falsely alarming are not the same problem — and that reading is the substance of counseling before transfer.

General obstetrics and gynecology underneath the fertility work. Attending posts at Taipei Wanfang Hospital and Qixin Clinic cover the diseases that arrive before a fertility question does, including the cavity and cycle problems this profile treats operatively.

Both compartments are operable. Endoscopic work covers the inside of the uterus and the space around it, so a patient who needs the cavity corrected before transfer, or who has endometriotic disease outside it, is assessed within one surgical repertoire rather than sent to a separate operator.

Professional Affiliations

Education: Faculty of Medicine, University of Warsaw; advanced study at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in the United States. Appointments: attending physician, department of obstetrics and gynecology, Taipei Wanfang Hospital; research physician, reproductive medicine center, Taipei Medical University Hospital; attending physician, department of obstetrics and gynecology, Qixin Clinic. Current post: Director of Preconception Genetics at NUWA Fertility Center, heading the unit also titled Prenatal Carrier Screening and holding an attending physician appointment on the reproductive team.

Suitable For

Couples with a family history of inherited disease: single-gene conditions, chromosome rearrangements and consanguineous unions each call for a different test, and the indication has to be settled before embryos exist rather than after. Preconception genetic counseling is listed as a standalone specialty here.

Advanced maternal age weighing embryo screening: chromosome error rates rise with maternal age and affect both implantation and miscarriage risk, so the question of whether to screen embryos is worth answering at the planning stage rather than after a failed transfer.

Irregular cycles or absent ovulation: cycle pattern is the earliest usable signal of an ovulatory problem, and correcting it or working around it determines whether insemination, medication or a full cycle is the appropriate first step.

Abnormal ovarian function needing assessment before stimulation: reserve sets the realistic yield of a protocol, and the same assessment decides whether to proceed, accumulate several retrievals, or freeze eggs first. Ovarian function and egg freezing appear together on this list.

Cavity correction before an embryo transfer: polyps, adhesions and septum all reduce implantation odds, and transferring into an uncorrected cavity wastes a cycle that could have been saved by an operation beforehand.

International patients consulting directly in English: the combination of a European degree, United States training and English as a listed consultation language suits patients who want to discuss indications and limitations of genetic testing with the physician who will order it.