Northwestern Medicine Center for Fertility and Reproductive Medicine Chicago Located in Chicago, Illinois

Cassandra Villadonga

2 months ago

The problems at this clinic started right away. I had a few different nurses but then finally got placed with one for my given doctor. We had many questions like most first time IVF patients would expect to have. I was met with resistance at every turn. The night before my egg retrieval I received a blocked number calling me and it was Olivia P their program manager. I never met her and did not understand why she was calling me or why she was in my locked hippa chart. She would always call me on speaker which felt very unsettling. My first transfer of a 6AA embryo was a failure. During my second transfer I had more medical questions . This time I got a blocked call from one of the nurses who asked me, "what I wanted?". No one ever wanted to help me. During this second cycle I still had this Olivia P contacting me. The second IVF transfer ended with the death of my baby at 15 weeks. My dead baby's pathology showed the opposite gender of what was implanted and I only had embryos of one gender. So we sent samples to whole genome sequencing and sent a sample back to their pgt place, RGI to verify it was ours. I mycharted with Dr. Pavone who was very apologetic about my loss and she told me to make a follow up once I felt well enough. A few days later while I'm bleeding from my D& E procedure Dr. Jungheim, Chief of this department calls me on speaker phone and tells me I cannot get medical care at northwestern. She then sent me a letter with cryptic words that are used to describe an alive baby and she wrote, " our patient relationship is not viable." She also wrote that I didn't trust them. I think any mother whose baby was an opposite gender would be confused. Anyways, seemed like a very harsh use of words to a mother who just spent 4 years trying to conceive and was still bleeding after removal of the dead IVF baby. This place needs to make some big changes in how they treat patients. We had to spend thousands of dollars to move our embryos out of here. Many months of time have been wasted and so far all of our embryos created here did not make it to a live birth.

Jesus Rodriguez

2 months ago

I am documenting this experience because, despite interacting with this team for only about a month, I developed serious concerns about communication, procedural fairness, and bias in care. The issue began when I received inaccurate insurance guidance from a specialty pharmacy representative and was directed to obtain documentation that ultimately proved inconsistent with actual policy requirements. This resulted in unnecessary confusion and significant time spent trying to resolve conflicting information. Over the course of a week, I made repeated good-faith efforts to communicate with the pharmacy, the Center, and Patient Relations to clarify the situation. Despite these efforts, I did not receive clear clinical clarification. Instead, I later received written notice from Emily Stevenson (a University of Phoenix graduate by the way) that my behavior had been characterized as “aggressive,” and my care was terminated. The term “aggressive” is not neutral. As a woman of color, being labeled this way after expressing frustration about inaccurate information is deeply concerning. There is substantial research documenting that women of color are disproportionately described as “aggressive” when advocating for themselves in medical and professional settings. That broader context cannot be separated from this experience. There were no prior documented conduct concerns, no warning, and no attempt at mediation before termination. I was not in an active treatment cycle at the time. During my consultation, Dr. Bulun arrived late and primarily deferred to his fellow. At different points during the visit, the fellow and attending appeared to contradict one another, which created confusion and undermined confidence in the clarity of the care plan being presented. While scheduling delays can happen in busy clinics, the overall interaction felt rushed and not particularly patient-centered. Fertility care is emotionally and financially intensive. Patients deserve accurate insurance guidance, coordinated communication between clinics and pharmacies, and thoughtful handling of conflict when concerns arise. In my experience, those standards were not met. Patients, particularly patients of color, should expect equitable treatment, careful communication, and fair process when advocating for themselves.

Katelyn Thompson

9 months ago

The service I have received from this office is extremely slow & impersonal. I would not recommend Northwestern Medicine to anyone beginning their family planning journey. Often times I feel like I am just a part of a factory where they are trying to push people out the door. Based on what I have heard from others receiving service from other hospital networks things could be moving much quicker & I should be meeting more often with my doctor.

Aden Kadri

a year ago

Cannot recommend getting your fertility care at Northwestern more highly. I spent over a year and more than $50k working with another clinic with no explanation for why I wasn't getting pregnant and no personalized care. I was able to switch to working with Dr. Jain at Northwestern and he immediately knew what the issue was and put me on a personalized regimen. I did one retrieval cycle with them and got 8 pgt-a normal embryos! I then did one embryo transfer and am now 8 weeks pregnant. It can take a while to get an appointment with them as a new patient but I promise it is worth the wait

Maja Brajic

a year ago

Thank you so much for helping me to make my dream of having a family come true! The best gift I could ever ask for! Dr Tarun Jain was my doctor in 2019 I gave birth to beautiful healthy son and now (41 years old) in 2024 he helped me be blessed with healthy beautiful daughter!!! I was one in million cases....I decided to have a child on my own after my husband passed away...I felt like he really cared and supported my decisions...Dr Tarun Jain was extremely understanding and empathetic throughout the entire process. He took his time to review the options and provide proposals for next steps. Always keeping in mind based on science what is possible. The most I love seeing him taking his time to personally congratulate me for giving the birth to my kids.... I did and I will definitely recommend him as a high ranking professional and the best doctor ever!!!!!