07/20/2026
We weren't expecting to make a new friend at Barnes and Noble on Saturday.
But then Tami found us in the stacks.
I'd been reading Rana Awdish MD's second book “After Shock” and my friend Marty was so intrigued I wanted to get her the first book, “In Shock”.
When we struggled to find it, Tami came to help and ended up staying to swap book recommendations with us, sounding genuinely intrigued by Dr. Awdish's books herself. Marty walked out with her copy of In Shock. I walked out with Tammy's recommendation for my next read.
That's what a good book does. It pulls people together who might never have had a reason to talk.
I'm also picking up a copy of In Shock for my friend Kate for her upcoming train trip, the perfect setting for a book she won't want to put down.
If you haven't read "In Shock" yet, here's the quick summary. Dr. Awdish is a critical care physician who nearly died from multiple organ failure and was cared for by her own colleagues. She took her pain and loss and decided to share what she experienced on the other side of medicine.
She fills in gaps that medical training never addresses: what patients actually experience and what’s possible when physicians learn to show up differently told by someone who lived it from both sides.
It will change how you think about what it means to be both a physician and a patient.
Her newly released follow-up "After Shock" is waiting when you finish.
Both books are available on Audible if you prefer to listen.
Go get In Shock first. You'll know what to do next.
I put a link to the B&N site to purchase in the comments.
