Infertility: is there a role for the surgeon

No matter how successful IVF and intracytoplasmic sperm injection become, there will always be a role for the infertility surgeon in the care of the woman with infertility. The challenge is to develop evidence-based protocols that will specify when surgery is clearly a better choice than IVF. It will also be important to develop training programs in pelvic surgery that will teach techniques and strategies designed to maintain or improve fertility as well as remove or destroy pelvic pathology. With a decreasing number of surgical procedures available to train residents in infertility surgery, it will become increasingly important to consider alternative models such as virtual reality and postresidency fellowships or preceptorships.