While in principle, it is a good idea to show the success rate of in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment in each of the fertility clinics, we advise that if such data is made available, it should be interpreted with caution by the public.

This is because the success rate of any medical procedures in general, like cardiac bypass, IVF and surgical procedures, depends not only on the expertise of the doctors and hospitals performing the procedures but also the health and fitness of the patients undergoing these procedures.

A tertiary referral centre which treats patients with complicated illnesses may not have a good overall success rate even if their doctors and facilities are very good because the patients it treats may have multiple underlining medical conditions which lower its success rate.

By using the success rate of a medical procedure to judge how good one centre is, it may result in all the medical centres refusing to treat complicated cases in order to show a high success rate.

Patients, especially those who have underlying complicated medical conditions, would end up as the ultimate loser as no doctors or hospitals may want to treat them.

To choose a suitable medical centre for your treatment, the success rate of medical procedures can only be one of the many criteria to consider, and other equally important criteria you would need to consider include cost of treatment, reputation of the centre, whether it is a tertiary referral centre or an academic medical centre, volume of patients treated for those procedures annually and experience and training of the doctors performing those procedures.

Virginia Goh Min Wen (Ms)

Dr Victor Teoh

Authors of the book, Picking The Right Hospital, Right Doctor In Singapore