All in Her Head

Finalist for the 2025 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award USA Today Bestseller “All in Her Head accomplishes a remarkable feat of storytelling. By combining essential medical histories about women’s bodies with all the narrative propulsion of a medical thriller, Comen has written a must-read, compelling, and important book.”—Siddhartha Mukherjee, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Emperor of All Maladies and The Song of the Cell “Wow! This book will upend everything you thought you knew about your body while empowering you to make better decisions moving forward. Through storytelling, extensive research, and easy recommendations, Dr. Elizabeth Comen has given us all a priceless road map to reclaim our agency.”—Eve Rodsky, author of Fair Play A surprising, groundbreaking, and fiercely entertaining work of narrative nonfiction, this medical history is both a collective narrative of women’s bodies and a call to action for a new conversation around women’s 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 women’s healthcare is a story in which women themselves have too often been voiceless—a narrative instead written from the perspective of men who styled themselves as authorities on the female of the species, yet uninformed by women’s own voices, thoughts, fears, pain and experiences. The result is a cultural and societal legacy of gender bias in medicine 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 on—as do the pervasive societal stigmas and lingering ignorance that shape women’s health and relationships with their own bodies. In a feat of compelling science writing, 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 bodies—how they work, the actual doctors and patients whose perspectives and experiences laid the foundation for today’s medical thought, and the many oversights that still remain unaddressed. With a physician’s knowledge and empathy, Dr. Comen follows the road map of the eleven organ systems to share unique and untold stories, drawing upon medical texts and journals, interviews with expert physicians, as well as her own  experience treating thousands of women. Empowering women to better understand ourselves and encouraging patient advocacy for care that prioritizes healthy and joyful lives— for us and generations to come—All in Her Head is written with humor, wisdom, and deep scientific and cultural insight. Eye-opening, sometimes enraging, yet always captivating, this shared memoir of women’s medical history is an essential contribution to a holistic understanding and much-needed reclaiming of women’s history and bodies. This essential guide to women’s medical history uncovers: The Roots of Medical Misogyny: How centuries of misunderstanding the female body—from the myth of the wandering womb to the dismissal of women’s heart disease—continues to impact medical care today. A System-by-System Tour: A unique journey through the eleven organ systems, revealing the shocking and often-ignored stories behind women's skin, bones, nerves, and more. An Empowering Call to Action: Practical, evidence-based insights from a leading oncologist to help you advocate for yourself, understand your body, and demand better care from the medical establishment. Hidden Medical Histories: The forgotten stories of doctors and patients whose experiences laid the foundation for modern medicine, and the biases that still need to be addressed.