After Shock: Learning to Reinhabit My Body After Illness

by Rana Awdish

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

In this powerful follow-up to her bestselling memoir, In Shock, a doctor 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. As she deconstructs her belief system and reassembles the pieces, she finds a radical healing as an embodied and relational process. What emerges is a profound meditation on the stories we create about ourselves, their value and their limitations.

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.

Genres: Memoir

288 pages, Hardcover

Expected publication June 16, 2026

About the author

Dr. Rana Awdish is the author of In Shock, a landmark medical memoir and the follow-up, After Shock. A sought-after public speaker, she is recognized as a leading voice in the movement to rehumanize healthcare. Her writing has appeared in The New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, Harvard Business Review, and The Washington Post. Her essay The Shape of the Shore was awarded a Sydney by The New York Times and nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her work has been featured on NPR, BBC, and CNN.

In 2020, This American Life documented Detroit’s experience of the COVID-19 pandemic in an episode titled “The Reprieve,” using Dr. Awdish’s audio diary chronicling the frontline experiences of Henry Ford Hospital clinicians.

Dr. Awdish has received numerous national honors, including the Schwartz Center’s National Compassionate Caregiver of the Year Award, U.S. News & World Report’s Healthcare Hero distinction, and Press Ganey’s Physician of the Year Award. She has been inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society, the Gold Humanism Honor Society, and named a Master of the American College of Physicians.

She serves as Clinical Professor of Medicine at Wayne State University School of Medicine and at Michigan State University College of Human Medicine. A board-certified physician in Internal Medicine, Pulmonary, and Critical Care Medicine, her clinical focus is Pulmonary Hypertension. Dr. Awdish completed her medical training at Mount Sinai Beth Israel in Manhattan, earned her M.D. from Wayne State University, and her undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Reviews

[Karen Axnick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Before diving into this latest memoir, I highly recommend reading the author’s first book (In Shock) to set the context for her experiences and insights. While it is incredibly intense it is a worthwhile read and perhaps it should even be mandatory reading for all health care professionals with direct patient contact.

After Shock picks up the author’s experience as a physician/patient now coping with her own chronic health issues as well as her ongoing commitment to providing compassionate, personalized care to others. To that end, she coaches the house staff under her supervision with respect as well as a desire to instill this perspective in their practice. The core of her approach is deep, active listening to the patient – to embrace not only the science of medicine but the art of treating the patient as a whole person. For many this may be an intellectual exercise, but for the author it is based on her hard-won insights relating to healing. This new paradigm she embodies recognizes the innate wisdom of the body and the source of all healing.

I will admit my bias in favor of her premise as a retired health care professional who became disillusioned with the limits of allopathic medicine and sought alternative methodologies to support healing. With AI (artificial intelligence) becoming increasingly embedded in health care, her message is critical to maintaining and even expanding the human aspect of the healing arts. Kudos to the author for her courage, perseverance, and willingness to share her perspectives.

My thanks to the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for the privilege of reviewing this book. The opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

This review will be posted on Amazon upon publication.

[Colleen Maclennan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just could not relate to this book. The author was a very sick lady . I felt sorry for her young son as she was often so unwell. I think she found solace when sick in art work and this helped her in her recovery. But it was medical professionals that helped her heal physically. She used other resources for her spiritual and emotional wellbeing to recover.

[layan ليان (on hiatus)]

I seriously can not wait for this!!

[Marika · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I learned at an early age that silver linings offered an emotional bypass around pain" writes Dr Rana Awdish in this follow-up book to her popular memoir In Shock. In this book she takes readers along as she embarks on how to accept, love and trust her physical body and mind after enduring medical trauma that she had previously experienced.
An inquisitive person, Awdish deconstructs her absolute belief in medicine being the only factor in one's body healing when she asks herself "If the act of healing happened in my physical body and medicine facilitated the healing by harnessing MY body's intrinsic healing potential, then who did healing really belong to"? She deftly uses imagery from paintings to express the conflicting and confusing emotions that she feels during her healing journey and it just works.
A stunning example of finding peace after pain.
My only suggestion would be for the publisher to include an appendix of the paintings/art that the author writes about.

*I read an advance copy and was not compensated.

[Beverly]

Thank you for choosing me to read and review this book. I look forward to receiving my copy.