Editor’s Note: Every year, the national medical group Castle Connolly produces a list of the best doctors in America. In the Memphis area, the 2026 Top Doctors List comprises more than 400 physicians representing 60 different specialties. Here, we introduce you to one of the care-givers who have been named a Top Doc time and again.
photograph courtesy fertility associates of Memphis
Growing up in Madison, Mississippi, Amelia Bailey knew she wanted to be a doctor at the quite impressionable age of five. An aunt and uncle were doctors, and Bailey found herself drawn to the world of white robes and stethoscopes, patients to be examined and, hopefully, healed. “I dressed up as a doctor for career day, and that’s just always what I wanted to do,” says Bailey, today the director of fertility preservation at Fertility Associates of Memphis. “I’ve always loved science; exploring and wanting to learn more about the world. And I’ve always enjoyed taking care of people.”
As for which field of medicine to pursue, Bailey gravitated to REI (Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility), where she enters the lives of her patients at their lowest but then often witnesses the happiest of outcomes. She relishes the memory — from her third year of medical school, on her REI rotation — of meeting the two-year-old child of a woman who wanted to introduce her daughter to “the person [Bailey’s attending physician] who helped us get her. I felt like I found my calling,” adds Bailey, “and I haven’t wavered since. It’s an honor and gift to do what I do every day.”
“I’ve found very little benefit for my patients who go onto blogs or social media for medical advice. There are great books. And absolutely find a support group, but don’t seek medical knowledge from the group.” — Dr. Amelia Bailey
Bailey balances extreme lows (a woman’s inability to become pregnant) with extreme highs (the arrival of a healthy baby), and it’s the navigating from one to the other that delivers immeasurable reward. “It’s my job to take sad tears and turn them into happy tears,” she says. “There are so many things we can do to help that the majority of our patients end up with the happy tears.”
A current challenge in fertility science should not surprise: the internet. Anxiety levels — high to begin with for a couple pursuing parenthood — compound and multiply when “research” is pursued online. “Patients are reading stories about bad outcomes,” explains Bailey, “or they’re reading stories about women who have succeeded, and it’s encouraging until it spirals into anxiety: ‘What if that’s never me?’ I’ve found very little benefit for my patients who go onto blogs or social media for medical advice. There are great books. And absolutely find a support group, but don’t seek medical knowledge from the group.”
Bailey notes that her field changes frequently, new technology and new studies impacting what fertility specialists are doing with their workday. “There’s a different way to approach IVF with something called stacked cycles,” she explains. “We do back-to-back [egg] retrievals and two-thirds of women do significantly better on their second retrieval than they do on their first. This is phenomenal, because the only women we’re stacking are those who had low success rates to begin with.”
Smiles, joy, and yes, babies remind Bailey of a well-chosen career path. “I get to see patients come back for baby number two or baby number three,” she says, “and they are often completely different people. They are calmer. They know the path, and they know they can survive it. It changes people beautifully.”
