Star Recognition Program: Dr. Geneviève Genest
The Montreal General Hospital Foundation (MGHF)’s Star Recognition Program invites patients and families to thank a staff member who improved their hospital experience by making a gift in their honour.
Among our recent Star recipients is Dr. Geneviève Genest!
As the founder of Canada’s first Reproductive Immunology Clinic, housed at the MGH and supported by our Foundation, Dr. Genest uses immunotherapy to treat some women who have experienced frequent miscarriages.
“A large part of what we’re doing in the lab is trying to figure out the immune landscape in the uterus at the time the embryo wants to implant,” she explains about her ongoing research. “What is different between patients that have normal fertility and patients that are infertile or miscarry? We’re trying to figure out immune signatures that are causative of infertility/miscarriage and eventually figure out if those immune signatures are present in blood. The goal is to have a blood test to diagnose and treat an immune problem before patients have recurrent miscarriages or repeated in-vitro fertilization failures.”
Dr. Genest notes that only “a very, very small proportion of patients that are infertile or have recurrent pregnancy loss actually need immunological help.” Therefore, the clinic only takes on patients who have experienced unexplained, recurrent implantation failure; minimum three high-quality embryo transfer failures, or patients that have had minimum three miscarriages. “Because up until that point, patients have a really, really good prognosis and they don’t need me.”
So, by the time patients arrive at her clinic, they often feel isolated and discouraged, she explains.
“These women and couples often feel alone and hopeless. The message I want to get across is that infertility and recurrent pregnancy loss is a very tough journey, but there are people working hard to find solutions and treatments. We care and you are not alone.”
As a leader in this unique field, she also offers the only Canadian training in reproductive immunology available through her fellowship program, and one of her fellows is presently setting up her own practice in Quebec City, which will be the second of its kind in the country (after Dr. Genest’s clinic).
