After Shock - by Rana Awdish (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

AN INSTANT USA TODAY BESTSELLER!

In this powerful follow-up to her bestselling memoir In Shock, a doctor asks: What does it truly mean to heal?

In the aftermath of her own critical illness, physician and writer Dr. Rana Awdish finds herself oddly estranged her from her own body. Medicine has conditioned her to view sick bodies as broken objects, not as sites of meaning, mystery, and quiet wisdom. So, when her own body warns her that she'll be dead in five years, she's unsure whether to trust it enough to follow where it leads. Allowing for this kind of innate, bodily wisdom would require her to dismantle and reconfigure her entire belief system. She decides to take a leap of faith, abandon certainty and surrender to the message--a choice that ultimately saves her life. What emerges is a profound and vulnerable meditation on the true nature of healing.

Guided by the evocative power of art from Frida Kahlo to Mark Rothko, as well as her own creative process, After Shock is part memoir and part guidebook to sustaining wonder and attention to beauty even in the face of grief and loss. Awdish elegantly draws us into a space where our perception shifts and curiosity leads to profound revelation. She invites us to reclaim the power that resides in our attention, relationships and willingness to stay present with suffering long enough for it to transform into something else.

Through her poetic prose and evocative imagery, we learn to see differently, feel deeply, and trust that healing is always possible.

Review Quotes

"Awdish found that her experiences as a patient changed the way she practiced medicine, making her a collaborator in her patients' care...empowering."
--Library Journal

"Many believe medicine is in existential crisis, which makes this is an urgent and timely book. Dr. Awdish's writing is powered by art and human story, erupting off the pages in visual splendor. This is itself shocking considering the serious nature of her subject matter: life, death, and back to life. Through this penetrating analysis of her own disease and recovery, Dr. Awdish offers us a master class in self-discovery. Her writing is an exacting scalpel used to debride layers of physical and spiritual injury. In so doing, she exposes what courage looks like. For anyone seeking healing, After Shock offers a path to uncouple pain and fear, explore the human condition, and achieve acceptance no matter your circumstance. For healers, she teaches that medicine and science will never be enough. After Shock belongs on a short list of others that will serve to reshape the teetering steely structure of medical hierarchy by reclaiming the power of humanism and redirecting our focus where it must be...on the patient."
--Wes Ely, MD, author of Every Deep-Drawn Breath

"A piercingly honest, insightful, deeply vulnerable examination of the true nature of healing...Written with her characteristic humanity, humor, and gorgeous prose, Awdish's incisive observations and raw candor following the impact of her first book will take your breath away. If In Shock opened your mind to all the ways Medicine can better meet patients' needs, After Shock will blow it wide open with the power to heal that lies within each of us."
--Neda Frayha, M.D., Editor and host, Hippo Education Presents: The Monthly Rounds podcast

"This book will forever alter how you think about healing. Healing is often described as non-linear, but no one can quite bring that to life like Awdish does, through her multiple near-death experiences, intersecting roles as patient, mother, friend, and doctor, and willingness to circle back to revisit what she once thought she knew. With her characteristic vulnerability and insightful artistic lens, Awdish generously takes readers through her evolving relationship with her body, and ultimately helps us to feel less alone. This book is truly a gift!"
--Jessi Gold MD, MS psychiatrist and bestselling author of How Do You Feel

"Awdish writes with courage, vulnerability, and blazing emotional intelligence. Straddling the worlds of patient and doctor, she blesses both medicine and literature with her generous heart and poetic instincts."
--Emily Silverman, MD, Founder, The Nocturnists, Assistant Volunteer Clinical Professor of Medicine, UCSF

"This fearless book is an inspiring and beautiful call to action, for all of us who wish to be healers."
--Silvia Perez-Proto, MD, MS, MBA. End of Life Center Medical Director, Cleveland Clinic.

"In After Shock, Rana Awdish draws again on her own personal and professional life as well as on art and literature to ask deep and urgent questions about the very nature of healing--and how we can be better at it. No one writes about the art of medicine more insightfully or more movingly."
--Suzanne Koven M.D. M.F.A., author of Letter to a Young Female Physician, Writer-in-Residence Massachusetts General Hospital

"After Shock is, at its core, a beautiful love story. Love and reverence for the body and its resilience; for family and the steadfast friends who anchor us; and for medicine itself. Awdish's unflinching gaze honors medicine's miracles and its good people, while revealing its too-often-overlooked limitations and its vast potential to reclaim its true mission of healing. By baring her story with vulnerability, she does more than marvel us, she invites us to dive boldly into our own stories, to find the lessons waiting in their hidden corners. This is a book written fearlessly, and it will leave you braver, wiser, and more deeply connected to what it means to heal. What a profound gift."
--Leonard Berry, Ph.D. Senior Fellow, Institute for Healthcare Improvement, Author, Management Lessons from Mayo Clinic

"Awdish's writing crackles with wisdom: wisdom about the human body's tremendous yet mysterious capacity to heal itself, about the mind's ability to illuminate paths through the darkness of illness, about the spirit's constant striving for connection with those we love. Part garden of ideas, part memoir, part work of art, this jewel of a book speaks to us all, since we are all patients and we are all healers."
--Avraham Z. Cooper, MD, Co-host of The Curious Clinicians Podcast, Co-author of Why Doesn't Your Stomach Digest Itself?: Tales of the Human Body's Remarkable Resilience

About the Author

Dr. Rana Awdish is the bestselling author of In Shock, a landmark medical memoir. She is the Medical Director of Care Experience at Henry Ford Health and a pulmonary physician. She was Schwartz Center's National Compassionate Caregiver of the Year and a U.S. News & World Report Healthcare Hero. She is recognized as a leading voice on healing, has written for The New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, Harvard Business Review, and The Washington Post. She has been featured on NPR, BBC, and CNN.