Viji Sundaram, MD

About Viji Sundaram

Viji Sundaram taught high school math and science before she was a doctor. She took a degree in biomedical engineering at Georgia Tech, then deferred medical school to teach at Carver High School in Atlanta through Teach for America — the kind of detour that tends to show up later in how a physician explains a stimulation protocol.

She came back to medicine at the Medical College of Georgia, where she took her medical degree and her obstetrics and gynecology residency, then moved west for a reproductive endocrinology and infertility fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco. At Kaiser Permanente in San Francisco she joined the faculty, helped create a new IVF center, and became the residency’s REI core curriculum director — the person responsible for what the OB/GYN residents are actually taught about fertility treatment. She is board-certified by the ABOG in both Obstetrics and Gynecology and REI.

Her declared clinical interests are the ones she has built a public profile around: fertility preservation and family building for transgender patients, LGBTQ care, the cost of and access to fertility treatment, medical education, and Asherman syndrome. She has advocated in Washington, D.C. with Resolve, the national infertility organization, for legislation requiring insurance coverage of infertility care, and she has given FertilityIQ lectures on the particular fertility considerations for South Asian patients. A Georgia native who grew up in Marietta, she is fluent in Tamil and moved back to the Southeast to be closer to family.

Clinical Expertise

• Transgender fertility preservation — egg, embryo and sperm freezing before gender-affirming treatment that affects fertility, including the timing and hormonal questions specific to that pathway.
• LGBTQ family building — treatment plans for same-sex couples and single patients, where donor gametes and one partner’s eggs carrying the other’s pregnancy shape the protocol.
• IVF and assisted reproductive technology — stimulation, retrieval, laboratory culture and transfer, the core of her practice at FIRM.
• Asherman syndrome — intrauterine adhesions, a surgical and ultrasound-diagnosed cause of infertility and recurrent loss that requires hysteroscopic treatment before any transfer has a chance.
• Program building and teaching — she has set up an IVF center and written the curriculum residents learn from, which is a different skill from running a cycle but the one that determines standardization.

Why Choose Dr. Sundaram

Transgender and LGBTQ family building is her stated specialty, not an added tag. Her biography names it first, lists a textbook contribution on transhealth, and pairs it with advocacy for insurance coverage — a combination that usually means she has handled the scheduling, hormone and legal questions repeatedly rather than once.

She helped build an IVF center from scratch. Kaiser Permanente San Francisco’s new center was created while she was on faculty there, so clinic-level protocol design is part of her history, alongside the residency curriculum she directed.

She works the access problem as well as the medical one. She has lobbied in Washington through Resolve for mandated infertility coverage, which is the practical difference between treatment being possible and being affordable.

She teaches and publishes. She is a contributing author in medical textbooks on transhealth, presents at national meetings, publishes in peer-reviewed journals, and has given FertilityIQ lectures on fertility care for South Asian patients.

Professional Affiliations

Sundaram is a member of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine and a fellow of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and is certified by the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology in Obstetrics and Gynecology and in Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility. She has served on the faculty of Kaiser Permanente San Francisco, where she directed the residency’s REI core curriculum, and she advocates through Resolve, the national infertility organization, on insurance coverage for infertility care.

Suitable For

Transgender patients planning treatment that may affect fertility. Egg, embryo or sperm freezing before hormone therapy or surgery is time-sensitive, and it is the area her biography leads with.

Same-sex couples and single patients. LGBTQ care is one of her declared interests, and FIRM’s published service list includes donor egg and donor embryo programs, which is how most female couples and single patients reach a pregnancy.

Patients with suspected uterine causes of infertility. Asherman syndrome and intrauterine adhesions sit at the edge of most IVF programs’ attention and are named as her interest.

South Asian patients, and patients who want care in Tamil. She is fluent in Tamil and has lectured specifically on the fertility-care considerations that come with South Asian family and community dynamics.