Rana Awdish

Dr. Rana Awdish is the author of In Shock, a critically acclaimed, bestselling memoir based on her own critical illness. She is a sought-after public speaker, delivering inspirational keynote addresses to groups ranging from professional medical societies, to members of Congress, to organizations combatting homelessness.

A pulmonary and critical care physician, she serves as the Director of the Pulmonary Hypertension Program at Henry Ford Hospital. She also serves as the Medical Director of Care Experience for Henry Ford's Health System, where she has integrated compassionate communication strategies and Narrative Medicine practice into the curriculum.

Awdish received the Schwartz Center’s National Compassionate Caregiver of the Year Award in 2017. She was named Physician of the Year by Press Ganey in 2017 for her work on improving communication and received the Critical Care Teaching Award in 2016. She has been inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha medical honor society and the Gold Humanism Honor Society.

In 2020, the podcast This American Life documented the COVID pandemic in Detroit in an episode entitled The Reprieve, using Awdish's audio diary of Henry Ford Hospital employees' experience during that time. Her narrative non-fiction essays have been published in The Examined Life Journal, Intima, CHEST and The New England Journal of Medicine. She has written editorials for The Harvard Business Review, Annals of Internal Medicine, The Washington Post and The Detroit Free Press. Her essay The Shape of the Shore was awarded a Sydney by the New York Times and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Prior to coming to Henry Ford, Awdish completed her training at Mount Sinai Beth Israel in Manhattan. She attended Wayne State University Medical School and completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She is board-certified in Internal Medicine, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine.