Article about the rise and fall of a famous fertility doctor in NYC, Dr. Niels Lauersen.

Photo from 1988 of Dr. Niels Lauersen with the author of the piece, Eileen Stukane.

My mother sent me an article recently that was published in Chelsea Community News which I thought was exceptional. It tells the story of Dr. Niels Lauersen, a well-known fertility doctor in NYC in the 1980s and 1990s who was convicted in 2001 of health insurance fraud. Niels died in July 2020. Here is the link to the article: Fame and the Final Chapter: My Co-Author, Myself – Chelsea Community News.

The article had an effect on me because it gave a nuanced portrait of a person who did something wrong, leading with his positive acts and traits. I liked this passage in particular, where the author, Eileen Stukane, is telling her friend to get a second opinion from Niels regarding why the friend was having trouble conceiving:

I suggested a second opinion from Niels and one night close to midnight, the only time Niels had a free moment, she came to his office. He examined her and announced that no, she did not have fibroids and there was no reason she could not conceive. She held up the ultrasound image, which had clearly marked arrows pointing to the so-called fibroids, and said, “But what about this? What about the arrows?” Niels said, “Anyone can draw arrows. You like arrows?” He pulled out his own patients’ X-rays from a drawer, drew arrows on them and said, “See, here are more arrows. You don’t have fibroids. Go home and get pregnant,” and she did.

What an illustrative anecdote about a person. Also, being a sucker for quotes, I reflected a bit on the quote at the beginning of the article:

I am staring at the headline and recalling the quote: “The facts are always less than what really happened.”

I take this to mean that humans like to apply clean, narrative structure to a world that doesn’t lend itself to cleanliness or narration. So either the facts are less or more than what really happened—I’m still not sure which is more correct—but regardless, a person is never as simple as a story.