World Embryologist Day: “Embryologists are one of a kind, brilliant scientists who act with care and compassion”

In thinking about the wonderful, dedicated work embryologists carry out on World Embryologist Day, I can’t help but reflect on the 31 years that I have had the privilege of working in our sector. Although I joined the HFEA as Director of Compliance and Information in November 2019, the majority of my career was spent as an embryologist, a role I am immensely proud of and thoroughly enjoyed.

It all started while I was at the University of Nottingham when, during physiology lectures, my interest in reproductive biology grew, and my chosen dissertation was looking at part of the IVF process in pigs (what wonderful characters pigs are). The techniques I learnt and the fascination of looking at eggs, sperm, and embryos made me determined that being an embryologist was the path for me.

In 1995, I started my trainee embryologist post in Sheffield and was one of the first to complete the post graduate diploma in clinical embryology. Processes and practices have certainly changed from when I started, where only keeping embryos for two days in the lab and replacing three embryos was routine. Embryos were frozen at very early stages, and the success of freezing eggs was very poor. At the time when I started, only married couples could access NHS funding. I also remembered being so excited to see equipment being installed to enable us to carry out ICSI.

Over the years, science and technology have vastly improved IVF. Knowledge and understanding of what an embryo needs to develop enabled culture media to be improved which, in turn, allowed embryos to grow to the blastocyst stage (five to six days after egg collection), and the advancement in freezing with a technique called vitrification meant that blastocysts could be successfully frozen. Both these helped the practice of single embryo transfer being introduced, which meant both risks to mothers and babies were greatly reduced. Being part of the ‘one at a time’ work was a proud moment, and I am always satisfied when looking the HFEA dashboards to see how multiple birth rates have fallen to just over 3% while success rates have improved.

So do I miss being an embryologist? Yes, I do. I miss looking down a microscope while doing an insemination watching the sperm swim round the egg and especially miss watching embryos grow and selecting the one for embryo transfer that hopefully will lead to a baby being born. Every single day at my clinic, I would anxiously await the pregnancy test results, and it was always a wonderful feeling to see a positive result, especially as our embryologists often spoke to patients and got to know them very well. I have worked with wonderful embryologists, and I would certainly say embryologists are one of a kind, brilliant scientists who act with care and compassion.

My role now, although not hands on anymore, is one where I feel I can use my knowledge and experience to help shape how we regulate to ensure patients are treated safely with the best possible care. In essence, I still feel the patient is at the heart of what I do and I will always feel very lucky I had the opportunity to be an embryologist.

About the author:

Rachel is the Director of Compliance and Information at the HFEA, the UK regulator of fertility treatment. Prior to this, she worked as an embryologist for 25 years, holding the position of Principal Embryologist and Person Responsible at Jessop Fertility. Rachel was Chair of Association of Embryologists from 2011 to 2014. She was involved in writing the national curriculum for training embryologists and has written national guidelines for oocyte freezing and elective single embryo transfer. She was awarded an MBE in 2015 for services to infertility.