In Shock: My Journey from Death to Recovery and the Redemptive Power of Hope
Written by Dr. Rana Awdish
Narrated by Dr. Rana Awdish and Teri Schnaubelt
4.5/5
()
About this audiobook
Now a Los Angeles Times Bestseller
The New York Times Book Review: "Awdish's book is the one I wished we were given as assigned reading our first year of medical school, alongside our white coats and stethoscopes...dramatic, engaging and instructive."
A riveting first-hand account of a physician who's suddenly a dying patient and her revelation of the horribly misguided standard of care in the medical world
Dr. Rana Awdish never imagined that an emergency trip to the hospital would result in hemorrhaging nearly all of her blood volume and losing her unborn first child. But after her first visit, Dr. Awdish spent months fighting for her life, enduring consecutive major surgeries and experiencing multiple overlapping organ failures. At each step of the recovery process, Awdish was faced with something even more unexpected: repeated cavalier behavior from her fellow physicians―indifference following human loss, disregard for anguish and suffering, and an exacting emotional distance.
Hauntingly perceptive and beautifully written, In Shock allows the reader to transform alongside Awidsh and watch what she discovers in our carefully-cultivated, yet often misguided, standard of care. Awdish comes to understand the fatal flaws in her profession and in her own past actions as a physician while achieving, through unflinching presence, a crystalline vision of a new and better possibility for us all.
As Dr. Awdish finds herself up against the same self-protective partitions she was trained to construct as a medical student and physician, she artfully illuminates the dysfunction of disconnection. Shatteringly personal, and yet wholly universal, she offers a brave road map for anyone navigating illness while presenting physicians with a new paradigm and rationale for embracing the emotional bond between doctor and patient.
Dr. Rana Awdish
DR. RANA AWDISH is the Director of the Pulmonary Hypertension Program at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit and a Critical Care Physician. She was recently named Medical Director of Care Experience for the ($6 billion, 24,000 employee) Health System. She was awarded the Speak-Up Hero award in 2014 for her work on improving communication, as well as the Critical Care Teaching Award in 2016. In 2017 she was a finalist for the Schwartz Center’s 2017 National Compassionate Caregiver of the Year (NCCY) Award and the Physician of the Year award from the Press Ganey National Client Conference. Dr. Awdish is board-certified in Internal Medicine, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine.
Related to In Shock
Related audiobooks
Every Deep-Drawn Breath: A Critical Care Doctor on Healing, Recovery, and Transforming Medicine in the ICU Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Doctored: The Disillusionment of an American Physician Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How Doctors Think Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Seven Signs of Life: Unforgettable Stories from an Intensive Care Doctor Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This Is Assisted Dying: A Doctor's Story of Empowering Patients at the End of Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Letters to a Young Doctor: Exploring and Surviving and Career in Medicine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Final Exam: A Surgeon's Reflections on Mortality Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We Are All Perfectly Fine: A Memoir of Love, Medicine and Healing Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I Wasn't Strong Like This When I Started Out: True Stories of Becoming a Nurse Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Intern: A Doctor's Initiation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Burnt Out Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Miracles We Have Seen: America's Leading Physicians Share Stories They Can't Forget Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Maneater: And Other True Stories of a Life in Infectious Diseases Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Confessions of a Male Nurse Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Committed: Dispatches from a Psychiatrist in Training Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Nurse's Story: My Life in A&E During the Covid Crisis Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5That One Patient: Doctors and Nurses’ Stories of the Patients Who Changed Their Lives Forever Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Sky Was Falling: A Young Surgeon's Story of Bravery, Survival, and Hope Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Exhale: Hope, Healing, and Life in Transplant Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTaking Care: The Story of Nursing and Its Power to Change Our World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An Anatomy of Pain: How the Body and the Mind Experience and Endure Physical Suffering Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Confessions of a Surgeon: The Good, the Bad, and the Complicated...Life Behind the O.R. Doors Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Last Night in the OR: A Transplant Surgeon's Odyssey Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5One Doctor: Close Calls, Cold Cases, and the Mysteries of Medicine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Blink of an Eye: A Memoir of Dying--and Learning How to Live Again Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Attending: Medicine, Mindfulness, and Humanity Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This Is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Young Doctor Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Code Gray: Death, Life, and Uncertainty in the ER Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Thousand Naked Strangers: A Paramedic's Wild Ride to the Edge and Back Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Medical Biographies For You
The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This Is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Young Doctor Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5On Vanishing: Mortality, Dementia, and What It Means to Disappear Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Big Lie: How One Doctor’s Medical Fraud Launched Today’s Deadly Anti-Vax Movement Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Life Is a 4-Letter Word: Laughing and Learning Through 40 Life Lessons Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unthinkable: An Extraordinary Journey Through the World's Strangest Brains Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Facing the Unseen: The Struggle to Center Mental Health in Medicine Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Neuroscientist Who Lost Her Mind: My Tale of Madness and Recovery Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All in Her Head: The Truth and Lies Early Medicine Taught Us About Women’s Bodies and Why It Matters Today Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Hospital Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Anatomy of an Illness as Perceived by the Patient: Reflections on Healing and Regeneration Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Thousand Naked Strangers: A Paramedic's Wild Ride to the Edge and Back Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Year of the Nurse: A 2020 Covid-19 Pandemic Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi - Book Summary Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In My Own Way Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Tennis Partner: A Doctor's Story of Friendship and Loss Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Healthy Brain, Happy Life: A Personal Program to Activate Your Brain and Do Everything Better Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Women in White Coats: How the First Women Doctors Changed the World of Medicine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The People's Hospital: Hope and Peril in American Medicine Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Trippy: The Peril and Promise of Medicinal Psychedelics Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Valedictorian of Being Dead: The True Story of Dying Ten Times to Live Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Because We Are Bad: OCD and a Girl Lost in Thought Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Home Before Morning: The Story of an Army Nurse in Vietnam Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Nocturnal Brain: Nightmares, Neuroscience, and the Secret World of Sleep Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Oh Sh*t, I Almost Killed You!: A Little Book of Big Things Nursing School Forgot to Teach You Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Related categories
Reviews for In Shock
89 ratings7 reviews
What our readers think
Readers find this title interesting, insightful, and beautifully written. It imparts valuable lessons and resonates with medical professionals. Many recommend it to others in the field."
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Thank you so much for this excellent book! I would love it to become required reading for all future medical students. It so resonates with me throughout my 40years of nursing. I will recommend it to the physicians and other coworkers I work with .
2 people found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This is an incredible book, and anyone involved in healthcare would benefit from reading it. I learned so much, it was illuminating in many ways. I’m a paramedic and think of and use the things I learned daily. Thank you to Dr. Awdish for sharing. The only thing I did not like (at all) was the way the narrator read. She did different, goofy voices for different people in the book like she was reading to a 2 year old. It was so out of pocket for the book and topic, it was very off-putting. It diminished an incredibly heavy, important, and sacred message and information. She also mispronounced a variety of the medical terms. I’d give her 1 star for her silly (for lack of a better word) way of reading. The book itself is 5 stars, and I will continue to recommend it.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Interesting. Amazing what the human body can do and what surgical treatment can achieve.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5So insightful, beautifully written. I listened to it one chapter at a time so I could really absorb the lessons imparted. Absolutely loved it
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This book gave me a lot to think about, and awed me by the willingness of Awdish to take a hard look at how she treated patients, and her willingness to work to train new awareness in her fellow doctors. Also by the amount of pain and suffering she went through during her illness and healing.I have a nursing background, and thoroughly appreciated the mention of the many procedures, diagnoses, and treatments.This was heard as an audiobook, beautifully and caringly read. Yet that also means I am unable to copy out any of my favorite passages.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The author has written a powerful book, which provides her story of severe sickness. She is aN ICU doctor and she became a patient in her own hospital. She learned much from this life event. She is trying to improve communication between doctors and patients. She has given lectures explaining how doctors can be psychologically damaging to their patients and themselves. I am glad to have the opportunity to learn from her without having to go through her pain.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I was first attracted to this book because it was written by a doctor. I thought it may have been about a doctor who had had a near death experience (I read a book like this a few years ago), what I was greeted with so much more. This was a slow to start book but well worth persevering with as the story contained within its pages is very powerful and at times gut-wrenching. However, it also showcases Dr Awdish’s own personal development and growth through an extremely harrowing time for her and her family. It also opened her eyes to how, at least at her own hospital (the story is set in America), impersonal the medical profession is. Her discovery of this as a patient herself led to her being a pioneer for change whereby the patients were treated as human beings and not an illness or surgery that needed performing.
Dr Awdish being a change pioneer though was only part of the story. A big part of the story was really about learning to make her own voice heard in spite of how much pain she was in. The description of her horrific trauma and the toll that that put on not only herself but also her husband and wider family unit, tugged at the heart strings. More than that though, it showed Awdish deal with the ramifications of a misdiagnosis of her initial symptoms, to eventually finding out what really was the problem and getting that rectified, to having her second child (she lost her first one as a result of the severe trauma suffered through her blood loss). This is a story of triumph, positive change where it was needed most, and finding your voice so that you can be heard instead of depending on others to speak up for you because you’re physically unable to do so.