Wayne State University Associate Professor of Internal Medicine Rana Awdish, M.D., will be the keynote speaker for the Class of 2022’s June 7 Commencement Ceremony.

The ceremony begins at 1 p.m. at the Fox Theatre in Detroit.

Dr. Awdish, a 2002 graduate of the School of Medicine, is the author of “In Shock: My Journey from Death to Recovery and the Redemptive Power of Hope,” a memoir of her time spent as a patient on a ventilator after a benign tumor in her liver ruptured, nearly killing her.

The section head of Pulmonary Hypertension at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, she also serves as medical director of Care Experience for Henry Ford Health.

Her book has been translated into eight languages and incorporated into the curriculum of many medical schools. She often lectures to physicians, health care leaders and medical schools across the country.

In 2020, U.S. News and World Report named Dr. Awdish a Hospital Hero for her work on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic. She was awarded the Speak-Up Hero Award in 2014 for her role in establishing a workshop-based program called CLEAR (Connect, Listen, Empathize, Align, Respect), which trains faculty and medical trainees in relationship-based compassionate communication skills using improvisational actors. She received the Schwartz Center’s National Compassionate Caregiver of the Year Award in 2017, and was named Physician of the Year by Press Ganey in 2017 for her work on improving communication.

While at the WSU School of Medicine, Dr. Awdish was inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha national medical honor society. She was named Henry Ford Hospital’s Critical Care Teacher of the Year in 2016, and received the 2019 Ake Grenvik Honorary Award from the Society for Critical Care Medicine. She was inducted into the Gold Humanism Honor Society in 2019.

Her book has garnered her interviews with The Times, The Telegraph, The British Broadcasting Corp., National Public Radio, NBC’s “Today,” MedPage, Health Leaders Media and Becker’s Hospital Review. She has written for Harvard Business Review, Huffington Post 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.

For more information on the commencement ceremony, visit  https://events.wayne.edu/som/2022/06/07/2022-som-commencement-ceremony-92441/