Praise for Harsh Medicine
“Harsh Medicine lays bare what so many clinicians from marginalized communities already know: the system often promises credit and support, but does not deliver. Dr. Grandis names these inequities with clarity and courage, and we need that honesty if we are going to eradicate them, together.”
—Uché Blackstock, MD, author of Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine
“In Harsh Medicine, Grandis walks a difficult tightrope with grace: channeling righteous anger, born of personal experience and countless stories of gender-based discrimination, while delivering a clear-eyed analysis of both the problems and their potential solutions. It illuminates not only the toll these inequities take on the women who endure them, but also the damage they inflict on academic medicine itself. A timely and valuable contribution to our understanding of what must change–and how.”
—Robert M. Wachter, MD, author of A Giant Leap: How AI is Transforming Healthcare and What That Means for Our Future
“Women now make up 57% of all applicants to U.S. medical schools and 55 percent of their graduates. Even in a specialty like otolaryngology in which 18% of practitioners are women, the proportion is growing. So what could be the problem? A lot, it turns out. As a practicing ear, nose and throat surgeon and medical researcher, Jennifer Grandis travelled the country to interview practicing women and men doctors and scientists. This is a book reveals a hidden world of disrespect for women, gone “underground,” and the harshness of that. If you think gender bias in medicine is a matter of history, read this book.”
—Arlie Russell Hochschild, author of Stolen Pride, Loss, Shame and the Rise of the Right.
Media Assets
for members of the press:
For more information about the book or to schedule an interview with Dr. Grandis about Harsh Medicine, please email [email protected]
Interview Topics
Jennifer Grandis is available to speak about:
° The making of Harsh Medicine
° Writing about difficult or traumatic experiences
° Patient advocacy and lived experience
° Power dynamics within medical systems
° Truth-telling, voice, and authorship
Interview Topics
Jennifer Grandis is available to speak about:
° The making of Harsh Medicine
° Writing about difficult or traumatic experiences
° Patient advocacy and lived experience
° Power dynamics within medical systems
° Truth-telling, voice, and authorship
Press Highlights
° Featured in [Publication / Podcast / Blog]
° Interviewed on [Podcast / Radio Show]
° Reviewed by [Outlet]
° Selected for [Festival / Reading Series / Award, if applicable]
Latest Book
Harsh Medicine
This book is both a diagnosis and a call to action.
Harsh Medicine draws on Dr. Jennifer R. Grandis’s decades of experience in academic medicine to examine how systemic gender bias is built into the policies, funding structures, and cultural norms of scientific institutions. Blending rigorous analysis with real-world case studies and personal insight, the book shifts the conversation away from individual resilience and toward the institutional change required to create true equity in medicine and research.
Publication Details:
Title: Harsh Medicine
Author: Jennifer Grandis
Publication Date: July 7, 2026
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-1421454788
About Jennifer Grandis
Jennifer R. Grandis, M.D is a physician scientist and is currently a Distinguished Professor at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Grandis is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation the Association of American Physicians and the National Academy of Medicine. She has been an American Cancer Society Research Professor since 2008 and has been continuously funded by the NIH since joining the faculty in 1993.
In her institutional roles at the University of Pittsburgh, and since 2015, at UCSF, she has facilitated collaborations between clinicians and investigators with an emphasis of developing a robust research infrastructure to support clinical and translational cancer studies.
She has published over 400 papers in the peer-reviewed journals including Science, Nature, and Cancer Cell, among others. HARSH MEDICINE is her first book.