At Reproductive Medicine Institute, every patient who visits us is just as unique and special as the team of doctors, nurses, embryologists, and staff caring for them.

With five offices across Chicagoland including Oak Brook where our IVF lab is based, we offer hopeful patients multiple convenient locations and compassionate people like Victoria Snegovskikh MD, at Reproductive Medicine Institute. Dr. Snegovskikh is the newest member to our team, so we wanted to learn a little more about her.

Q: Why did you become a doctor?

VS: Really because my mom is a doctor and she was always my role model. She ran a large pediatric hospital back home in Kazakhstan and she was also critical care doctor in ICU, she was always saving lives of children and I admired it as a kid. If something happened that others couldn’t do, she would go at night and help them. As a kid I was always visiting her at the hospital because she was worked long hours and didn’t have a lot of time to be at home. I would do my homework in the ICU doctors lounge and meet a lot of wonderful doctors and nurses. They were all very smart and nice, so, I really decided to be a doctor when I was in 5th grade.

Q: Who inspires you?

VS: My mom inspired me to become a doctor but now I think my patients inspire me. I see the light in their eyes when they are able to complete their families or start their families with our help. I think it’s a really great thing that we are doing to help our patients and I get a lot of inspiration from that.

Q: What is something about you that would surprise most people?

VS: A lot of things probably. I used to work as an interpreter for many years, starting in high school and then through medical school. I would fly in private jets from Jordan to Kiev to Turkey, and all different parts of the world. I traveled a lot and I loved to see the different countries and different cultures.

Q: Where did your interest in being a doctor, specifically a reproductive endocrinologist, come from?

VS: I had a friend who had cancer when I was in medical school, and she was told she’s never going to be able to get pregnant. This was many years ago, in the 90s, when I started medical school. She was already married in medical school when she had cancer and treatments, because of the treatments, she was told that she’s never going to get pregnant. At that point REI was not as developed as it is now so she didn’t have any frozen eggs or embryos, she didn’t have any treatments to spare her fertility. One day she went to the clinic of Reproductive Endocrinology, and they said you know what we can try to do something for you, to do a cycle. It was still very new. She started her cycle and she had to travel far for it because in our city there wasn’t a clinic. I was helping her do her injections, find all the meds, and everything. And then it was a miracle baby, she did get one egg and one embryo. She had a son but wasn’t able to freeze anything. I remember going with her for the first ultrasound, her husband was busy working far away in Siberia, so he couldn’t be there. But I went with her and heard the first heartbeat, and it was really, you know, something that has changed my life. That was the 90s, that was really early in the field, there were only maybe one or two clinics for the entire country. It was extremely expensive then and not covered by insurance, but she did it. I said to myself, this is probably something that I should be doing and then I started doing it.

Q: What drew you to RMI?

VS: I’ve known Dr. T for some time, and she’s also Russian. I think it’s a great practice to be at. I hope everything will work out and I will be happy there. I think they have good results and good patient doctor relationships. It looks like it’s a great team of people working together, that is something I want to be a part of.

Q: What do you consider your special areas of interest in reproductive medicine and why?

VS: I do have a couple areas. I used to work with cervical mucus. That is, I did my fellowship at Brown and I worked with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Department of Biological Engineering, we did some reality studies for cervical mucus. I did some research on that and I think there is a place for it in ART and REI, that’s why we do inseminations instead of timed intercourse and such. I also have a lot of patients with recurrent pregnancy losses, so RPL patients are kind of near and dear to my heart. I see a lot of patients about Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. I used to operate and do tubal surgeries. I used to do a lot of robotic surgeries for fibroids, hysteroscopies are one of the areas I do like to do for anomalies for septums and for fibroids. I used to operate a lot, and to teach residents and fellows and clinical students. Teaching is my other passion as well. I am hoping to stay at the Department of OB GYN and Medical School at Brown as an adjunct professor. In the evenings I will continue to do mentoring work with students and residents and help with Oral Board preparations for doctors and the departments.

Q: What do you like most about what you do?

VS: I like that families are eventually happy one way or another. We get to help them to achieve their goals and dreams of achieving their families. I love my patients and my couples; I love how we can change their lives.

Q: What do you like to do for fun?

VS: Travel. Definitely travel. I used to have a goal to do 50 states before 50, but with COVID it kind of died down. I think I am currently at 36 or 39, something like that, I’d have to look back. But definitely want to see all 50 states of the United States and travel with my family. I do love theater, I love reading books, I love hiking and outdoor activities, but travel is my passion.

Q: What are your favorite books or movies?

VS: Classic stuff. Like for books I reread a lot of childhood books, like Alexandre Dumas, like Monte Cristo, and all those books. I really enjoy some books that are serious about doctors as well. I don’t think I have one absolute favorite book, I do have multiple books that I like to reread. Definitely Alexandre Dumas is one of my favorite authors that I have been reading since childhood. And for movies, I am watching Grey’s Anatomy with my daughter, since she wants to be a doctor too. I know it’s a TV show but it’s fun to watch. It’s interesting how I can explain to my daughter how this is not how it really it happens in real life, this is totally made up, or this is close to what we would do and stuff like that. It’s very nice.

Q: If you could pick one place on your bucket list to travel, where would it be?

VS: I would love to visit Japan and Australia. I haven’t been there yet.

Q: Is there anything else you would like us to know about you?

VS: I have 2 Children. My son is 23 and daughter is 16. They are both Tri or quadruple lingual. They speak Russian at home but they study English, French, and Spanish. We try to speak different languages at the house. My husband is studying French with my daughter for example. My son is fluent in Russian, Spanish and English. We love different cultures and different languages. Not that I speak all of them but at least to be able to understand different cultures and where patients come from is very important to me.

Is there an RMI professional you’d like to know more about? Let us know!