No Barriers

Cultivating Compassion with Critical Care Expert, Dr. Rana Awdish - Condensed Version

Episode Summary

For part nine of our No Barriers Alchemy Series host Dave Shurna and guest host, Tom Lillig, interview Dr. Rana Awdish, a critical care physician operating on the front lines during COVID-19 at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, MI. Dr. Awdish’s own serious illness in 2008 has informed her belief in the power of compassion, sacred listening, and community. As medical director of the Care Experience for the Henry Ford Healthcare System, she is training staff to practice empathy in critical care. Her book, In Shock, a memoir based on her own critical illness was described in A New York Times book review as “the one I wish we were given our first year of medical school, alongside our white coats and stethoscopes.”

Episode Notes

For part nine of our No Barriers Alchemy Series our host Dave Shurna and guest host, Tom Lilig, interview Dr. Rana Awdish. Rana is a critical care physician operating on the front lines during COVID-19 at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, MI. Her own serious illness in 2008 has informed her belief in the power of compassion, sacred listening, and community. As medical director of the Care Experience for the Henry Ford Healthcare System, she is training staff to practice empathy in critical care. 

She completed her medical degree at Wayne State in 2002 where she was inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha national medical honor society, her residency at Mount Sinai Beth Israel in New York, and her fellowship training at Henry Ford Hospital where she serves as the current Director of the Pulmonary Hypertension Program. She is a fellow of the American College of Physicians and The American College of Chest Physicians and was inducted into the Gold Humanism Society in 2019.

She was named Henry Ford Hospital’s Critical Care Teacher of the Year in 2016, and the National Compassionate Caregiver of the Year by The Schwartz Center as well as Physician of the Year by Press Ganey in 2017. Her articles have appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Harvard Business Review, and the Proceedings of the Mayo Clinic. 

A New York Times book review called Awdish’s book, In Shock, based on her own critical illness. “the one I wish we were given our first year of medical school, alongside our white coats and stethoscopes.” Her book has since been integrated into the curriculum of medical schools and universities across the U.S. and Europe.

Resources:

https://www.ranaawdishmd.com/

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