A Newsletter Where Medicine Meets Humanity
unflinching stories, questions, and reflections on how care, power, and empathy shape the doctor–patient world
Hi, I’m Zed Zha
I am a physician, author, and medical cultural critic.
My upcoming book, Consented: A Doctor’s Call to End Medical Violence and Reclaim Patient Autonomy, exposes the hidden injustices within healthcare.
My children’s book, Why We Eat Fried Peanuts, honors heritage and resilience through my great-grandmother’s extraordinary sacrifice a century ago.
Through my op-eds and my newsletter, Ask The Patient, I write about medicine, ethics, and the human stories that shape both.
Browse the latest newsletter:
The Guilty Mother
When motherhood collides with medicine, the guilt of the caregiver becomes the diagnosis.
The Angry Daughter
When a daughter’s anger becomes her inheritance, the echoes of family and medicine collide.
The Uncomfortable Patient
When a patient’s discomfort becomes the story untold, the clinic hears silence first.
Why We Eat Fried Peanuts: A celebration of Family and Lunar New Year Traditions
Based on a true story from a century ago!
My first book was a children’s book based on the true story of my great-grandmother’s heroic act of saving a baby 100 years ago in China. The book invites kids and their families to learn about Lunar New Year traditions, practice simple Chinese phrases, and make a yummy treat together.
Recent Public Lecture - Racism in Medical Education
Dartmouth College, 2/6/2025
The Problematic Racial History of Medical Education
The Rabbi Marshall Meyer Great Issues Lecture on Social Justice
Storytelling
On November 4, 2023, during the storytelling event hosted by the Nocturnists and the Bellevue Literary Review, Zed went on the stage of the Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theatre in New York City to tell the story of her thieving mother. Well, the story of an ice cream for her thieving mother, to be exact. And so, so much more.
This story was made into a viral comic strip by the amazing artist and social justice advocate Pan Cooke, which has received over 500,000 likes on Instagram. Pan and Zed have since begun collaborating on a graphic memoir project, My Mother Was a Thief (tentative title). You can get a sneak peek of it in Zed’s newsletter.
Courtesy of Pan Cooke.
Newest OpEd
MedPage Today, October 23, 2024
A friend texted out of the blue: “When are you having children?”
I answered: “I am intentionally child-free.”
“Without children, what kind of legacy do you plan to leave?” They said.
My newest OpEd on MedPage Today dissects the ways we STILL can't look beyond the uterus and its childbearing potential in society and in medicine. As childfree women are under attack again, this IS personal.