Finding Reverence in Medicine with speaker Dr. Rana Awdish

September Speaker: Dr. Rana Awdish 

How does medicine see the body? As an intimate part of the self? As an object to be examined, diagnosed and acted upon? And how do these perspectives shape our patients’ experiences of illness, suffering and healing? In this talk, Dr. Rana Awdish reflects on her own experience as a patient and how objectification of the body left her feeling estranged from herself, fearful and unseen. She is now on the path back toward understanding medicine as a sacred, wise portal into healing. Drawing from her experiences as a physician, patient, writer and national leader in compassionate care, Dr. Awdish invites us into a profound conversation about reverence, vulnerability, and the human dimensions of caregiving. 

Dr. Awdish is the bestselling author of In Shock, a landmark medical memoir. She serves as the Medical Director of Care Experience at Henry Ford Health. A clinical professor at both Michigan State University and Wayne State University, she has been nationally recognized for her impact on health care transformation, including the Schwartz Center’s National Compassionate Caregiver of the Year Award and Physician of the Year by Press Ganey. Her writing has appeared in The New England Journal of Medicine, Harvard Business Review and The Washington Post, and her voice has been featured by NPR, BBC, CNN, This American Life and The Atlantic. She is widely regarded as a leading thinker on the moral and emotional dimensions of caregiving and healing. Her follow-up book, After Shock, which has been described as “a piercingly honest, insightful, deeply vulnerable examination of the true nature of healing,” will be published in June 2026 by Macmillan.

Dr. Awdish has kindly donated copies of her upcoming book, “After Shock” to those event attendees who RSVP in advance. Light Refreshments will be provided. 

Sponsored by the Program on Health, Spirituality and Religion.