Episode guests
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Quick takeaways
- The patients in this story experienced unexpected excruciating pain during egg retrieval, leading to a search for answers and personal stories to explain the pain.
- The experiences of pain and dismissal at the Yale Fertility Clinic raise questions about their practices and prompt reflection on their reputation and processes.
Deep dives
Experiences of Pain and Uncertainty
Women seeking fertility treatment at Yale University share their experiences, including multiple miscarriages, age-related concerns, and reproductive health issues. Each woman goes through the process of receiving information, administering shots, and anticipating the first egg retrieval. On the day of the retrieval, they all face unexpected excruciating pain, with one patient expressing surprise at the intensity and ineffectiveness of the pain medication. The patients and medical staff struggle to understand the cause of the pain, leading to the development of personal stories and theories to explain it. This highlights the complex nature of infertility treatment and the emotional toll it can have on patients.
Challenges at the Yale Fertility Clinic
The Yale Fertility Clinic is depicted as a reputable institution, but the experiences of pain and lack of understanding raise questions about their practices. Patients express feeling dismissed, treated as hysterical, and doubted from the moment they enter the clinic. The absence of clear information about the pain leaves patients and doctors searching for answers. The story also highlights the sensitive nature of infertility treatment, where success is often measured by the birth of a baby, but the complexities and potential harm caused by the process cannot be overlooked. These challenges prompt reflection on the reputation and practices of the Yale Fertility Clinic.
The patients in this story came to the Yale Fertility Center to pursue pregnancy. They began their I.V.F. cycles full of expectation and hope. Then a surgical procedure called egg retrieval caused them excruciating pain.
Some of the patients screamed out in the procedure room. Others called the clinic from home to report pain in the hours that followed. But most of the staff members who fielded the patients’ reports did not know the real reason for the pain, which was that a nurse at the clinic was stealing fentanyl, and replacing it with saline.
From Serial Productions and The New York Times, The Retrievals is a five-part narrative series reported by Susan Burton, a veteran staff member at “This American Life” and author of the memoir “Empty.”
Susan details the events that unfolded at the clinic, and examines how the patients’ distinct identities informed the way they made sense of what happened to them in the procedure room. The nurse, too, has her own story, about her own pain, that she tells to the court. And then there is the story of how this all could have happened at the Yale clinic in the first place.
Throughout, Burton explores the stories we tell about women’s pain. How do we tolerate, interpret and account for it? What happens when pain is minimized or dismissed?
Episode 1 of The Retrievals arrives Thursday, June 29th.
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