Amanda N. Kallen, MD, is the kind of doctor who thrives not only on helping patients but building trusting relationships with them.
“It makes my day when I feel like I have built that connection, that I have made myself available to a patient, even if it’s someone I met just minutes earlier,” says Dr. Kallen, a specialist in reproductive endocrinology and infertility. “That patient is now more comfortable. Those types of encounters are, by far, my favorite part of my job.”
Much of her work, she says, involves putting patients at ease and carefully explaining their options. “Patients can be overwhelmed, especially when it comes to infertility, because perhaps they haven’t told a lot of people and it feels like everyone else around them is having kids,” she says. “I try to validate these feelings and reassure them; to tell them I will be there for them, that I’m on their team, and that we will towards a solution together.”
Dr. Kallen has a special interest in fertility preservation for children and adolescents with cancer. Other focuses include heavy menstrual bleeding in adolescents, uterine anomalies, and fertility care for LGBTQ patients. “I’m passionate about making sure that everybody has access to fertility care, and that includes couples in same-sex relationships,” she says.
She is an assistant professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at Yale School of Medicine. Dr. Kallen is also highly active with the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), previously serving on the executive board as the national Junior Fellow Congress Advisory Council Chair. Her research focuses on the molecular mechanisms that regulate hormone production and fertility, and she is the recipient of the Reproductive Scientist Development Program grant for her work.