Three Decades of Trust: How Dr. Andrea Braverman Relies on the PAI in Reproductive Medicine

Summary: Dr. Andrea Braverman’s career in reproductive medicine centers on helping clinicians, candidates, and families make careful, informed decisions during emotionally complex evaluations. In her work with donors, gestational carriers, surrogates, and intended parents, the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI) gives her objective data that complements clinical interviews, helping her see a detailed picture and make more confident, informed recommendations.

For more than 40 years, Andrea Braverman, PhD, has worked at the intersection of physical and psychological well-being. She serves as a Clinical Health Psychologist and Clinical Professor of Obstetrics & Gynecology and Psychiatry & Behavioral Medicine at Thomas Jefferson University. In this role, she evaluates individuals navigating some of the most emotionally complex moments in reproductive medicine, including egg donors, sperm donors, gestational carriers, and surrogates. These evaluations carry real weight. The outcome shapes not only whether a candidate proceeds, but also the well-being of intended parents and the families being built. Her work sits within a field where clinical judgment and objective data must work together to support safe, informed decisions for everyone involved.

"I love my job, I love what I do, and I love helping people," Dr. Braverman said. That commitment has anchored a career built around a central question: how can a clinician be confident that an evaluation captures the full picture, not just what a candidate chooses to share?

The Challenge

In reproductive medicine, clinical interviews provide a valuable foundation, but they are not always sufficient on their own. Donors, gestational carriers, and surrogates are often eager to be approved for the process and may present themselves in the most favorable light. Without an objective measure to complement clinical impressions, psychological factors relevant to a candidate's readiness can go unnoticed until later in the process, when the stakes are higher for everyone involved. For a clinician working in this space, the central challenge is straightforward to describe and difficult to solve: how to see past a well-intentioned but incomplete self-presentation and toward a fuller, more reliable picture of a candidate's psychological readiness.

The Shift

To address this gap, Dr. Braverman has relied on the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI) from PAR since its release in 1991—that’s more than three decades of continuous use in her practice. The PAI, an objective personality and psychopathology measure, gives her a structured way to look beyond the clinical interview and identify patterns that might not otherwise surface.

"The PAI is a great measure. It provides data outside the information you may obtain in a clinical interview," Dr. Braverman said. She has found this particularly valuable when working with candidates who may not be forthcoming about underlying psychological concerns. "The PAI picks up on issues of latent psychology that may not come out in a clinical interview," she said.

The Outcome

For Dr. Braverman, the PAI has become a trusted constant across a career defined by change—in medicine, in reproductive technology, and in the population she serves. Even as new testing options have entered the field, she continues to rely on the PAI as the standard for her work with donors, gestational carriers, and surrogates. "The PAI is still the best measure for this population," she said, referring to reproductive medicine.

That confidence extends to the future of the tool itself. As PAR continues to refine and update the PAI, Dr. Braverman sees an opportunity to strengthen an instrument that has already stood the test of time. "I am excited about the PAI update that is being developed," she said, a reflection of both her long history with the measure and her expectation that it will continue to evolve alongside the field.

The Takeaway

Dr. Braverman's three decades of experience point to a broader lesson for clinicians working in high-stakes evaluation settings: objective testing tools and clinical judgment are strongest when used together. In fields such as reproductive medicine, where the psychological readiness of every participant carries lasting consequences, an instrument like the PAI can surface information that supports more thorough, more confident, and more defensible evaluations, for the clinician and for everyone involved in the process.

Her experience reflects a broader truth: an instrument's value is proven not by novelty, but by decades of trusted use across a changing field. For clinicians evaluating candidates in reproductive medicine or other high-stakes settings, the PAI remains a benchmark worth considering.