The Fertility Center Laboratory

Welcome to the Fertility Center of San Antonio and the services of the Fertility Center Laboratory. As laboratory scientists, we most often work behind-the-scenes but want to take this opportunity to say hello and welcome. Please know that we are proud to be participating in your care will do everything possible, as your laboratory partners, to make your treatment both pleasant and successful.

About the laboratory

The Fertility Center was founded in 1988 as the original, office-based fertility program in Texas under the guiding, patient-oriented philosophy of Dr. Joseph Martin. We have since been joined by Dr. Gregory Neal and have grown to a staff of over 25 people; but the goal of the center continues to be to provide state-of-the-art, effective fertility therapy in a patient-friendly and cost-effective setting. These principles have also been embraced in the organization and administration of the Fertility Center Laboratory. Each laboratory staff member works diligently to provide reliable and rapid results in our diagnostic testing program. In addition, the entire laboratory staff is specialty-trained in human assisted reproductive technology and offers many years of successful experience in all phases of laboratory therapeutic intervention for infertility.

The laboratory is inspected and certified by the federal government, under the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendment and by the College of American Pathologists Laboratory Accreditation Program for assisted reproductive technology (ART) laboratories. The Fertility Center is a member program of the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology (SART) and, thus, follows the practice guidelines established by the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) for IVF programs. All laboratory work is backed by ongoing quality improvement and quality control programs that ensure safe and effective laboratory procedures for our patients.

About your therapy

Your therapy involving assisted reproductive technology (ART) will be most effective when a trusting partnership is formed between you, the clinical staff and the laboratory. And this requires an understanding of both your diagnosis and the rationale for the treatment plan we have devised for you. Does this mean you must have in-depth scientific knowledge of your condition and treatment, a command of every detail? Absolutely not. That, too, can become a burden. And, after all, that is our responsibility. But you do need enough understanding of your therapy in order to develop the trust that brings the compliance on your part that is so necessary for success. The laboratory is a crucial component of ART and we want you to understand and trust this aspect of your care in the center.

A note from our lab director

"The experience of infertility is really not all that uncommon, so you should never feel that you are alone. And the medical reasons for infertility do not have to be a major deviation from normality. Some seemingly very minor “glitches” - an invisible malfunction in a single step of a simple biochemical pathway or the failure of sperm to bind to the shell of the egg, for example - can have dramatic consequences in a couple’s quest for pregnancy. For people wrestling with infertility, frustration often becomes an unwelcome visitor in their relationship.  We derive strategies to combat infertility and we want you to share in this knowledge - from it we become better partners."

Thomas B Pool, PhD HCLD
Scientific Director of Fertility Center Laboratory

Dr. Pool is board certified by the American Board of Bioanalysis as a High-Complexity Clinical Laboratory Director and serves as Scientific Director of Fertility Center Laboratory. Dr Pool is a member of ASRM, SART, AAB and a laboratory inspector for CAP.  See more about Dr. Pool.