When we tell patients to become IVF experts, we aren’t telling them to learn embryology – you can’t do IVF in your own bedroom. What we mean is that you need to know enough about IVF to be able to differentiate between a good IVF doctor and a bad IVF doctor.

A well-informed patient is able to find the right doctor by being able to identify bad doctors -and the trouble is that there are far more bad doctors than there are good doctors. Unfortunately, most patients are not proactive about selecting doctors, and most will either go to the doctor with the biggest brand name; the fanciest clinic; the one who works in the biggest hospital; or the one who charges the most money; or the one who the family doctor sends you to; or the one who delivered your friend’s baby.But these are terrible ways of selecting a doctor!

You need to select a doctor based on knowing exactly what the doctor can do for you, and the only way you can know this is by being well-informed about IVF treatment so that you can identify when a doctor is making lots of false promises simply in order to get you to IVF treatment with them.

The only reason there are so many bad doctors is because there are so many bad patients, who allow doctors to get away with all kinds of rubbish. The reality is that if patients took a little more intelligent interest in their own treatment by investing in Information Therapy, bad doctors would be forced out of business very soon. This would be very good for good doctors - and very good for patients as well. This is why it's important that patients learn to be proactive and stop thinking of themselves as being dummies. Please stop putting doctors on a pedestal!

You need to be able to do your own homework, so you can make well-informed decisions. This does NOT mean that you go to Dr Google, because you'll definitely get lost. But it does mean that you need to be able to think critically and go to reliable websites such as www.drmalpani.com, so you understand exactly what IVF treatment involves. You may need to do this multiple times until the medical jargon starts making sense to you, and this is worth it because it will allow you to differentiate between someone who's selling you a lot of hype and hot air just because they want to make money or a doctor who has your back and who's willing to tell you the truth and share realistic expectations with you because they are professionals, who put their patients first!

There is too much at stake for you not to do this properly, so please don’t be casual about selecting your IVF clinic!