In Shock begins with a nail-biter: the pregnant woman on the gurney is in excruciating pain and crashing fast. On the edge of consciousness, she hears someone above her say,

“We’re losing her.”

“Guys! She’s circling the drain here!”

She has the out-of-body experience, sees herself from above, the medical team working furiously around her, the glare of surgical lights on metal table and ceramic tile.

And then she sinks below the surface…

In this beautiful memoir, Rana Awdish, MD, tells her story of becoming a dying patient, enduring multiple organ failures and major surgeries, and being treated by highly-skilled but emotionally detached doctors in the very hospital where she is an attending physician. Her experience with critical illness dismantles the understanding of disease and healing she built in medical school, residency, and practice. Before she could truly learn to heal others, she had to learn from her own fragile and resilient body what it means to be sick.

In Shock: My Journey from Death to Recovery and the Redemptive Power of Hope is a riveting and intimate medical thriller; it also takes a critical look at Western medicine, how we prepare doctors, and our current standards of care. Awdish calls for a new paradigm that places compassion and emotional connection at the center of the doctor-patient relationship, rather than cool professionalism and “safe” distance, a shift that acknowledges the humanity and vulnerability of both patient and physician. Her experience completely changed her approach to training residents and interacting with the community at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. Read In Shock for a vision of what healthcare can and should be.

You can also hear Dr. Awdish and her caring team on This American Life, recorded in June, 2020, after the initial, exhausting peak of COVID-19.