USA Today Bestseller

A surprising, groundbreaking, and fiercely entertaining medical history that is both a collective narrative of womens bodies and a call to action for a new conversation around womens health.

For as long as medicine has been a practice, women’s bodies have been treated like objects to be practiced on: examined and ignored, idealized and sexualized, shamed, subjugated, mutilated, and dismissed. The history of womens healthcare is a story in which women themselves have too often been voicelessa narrative instead written from the perspective of men who styled themselves as authorities on the female of the species, yet uninformed by womens own voices, thoughts, fears, pain and experiences. The result is a cultural and societal legacy that continues to shape the (mis)treatment and care of women.

While the modern age has seen significant advancements in the medical field, the notion that female bodies are flawed inversions of the male ideal lingers onas do the pervasive societal stigmas and lingering ignorance that shape womens health and relationships with their own bodies.

Memorial Sloan Kettering oncologist and medical historian Dr. Elizabeth Comen draws back the curtain on the collective medical history of women to reintroduce us to our whole bodieshow they work, the actual doctors and patients whose perspectives and experiences laid the foundation for todays medical thought, and the many oversights that still remain unaddressed. With a physicians knowledge and empathy, Dr. Comenfollows the road map of the eleven organ systemsto shareunique and untold stories, drawing upon medical texts and journals, interviews with expert physicians, as well as her ownexperience treating thousands of women.

Empowering women to better understand ourselves and advocate for care that prioritizes healthy and joyful lives for us and generations to comeAll in Her Headis written with humor, wisdom, and deep scientific and cultural insight. Eye-opening, sometimes enraging, yet always captivating, this shared memoir of womens medical history is an essential contribution to a holistic understanding and much-needed reclaiming of womens history and bodies.