Physician, author, speaker, and medical cultural critic.
Zed’s upcoming non-fiction book on medical rape culture (North Atlantic Books, Spring 2026) challenges the hidden injustices within healthcare. She also explores heritage and resilience in her children's book, Why We Eat Fried Peanuts (2025), inspired by her great-grandmother’s extraordinary sacrifice a century ago.
As an active OpEd writer, Zed examines medical ethics, social justice, weight stigma, medical racism, misogyny, and reproductive rights. Through her blog and newsletter, she shares raw, personal insights as both a doctor and a human.
Zed’s advocacy is rooted in the fierce women before her—like her mother, who “stole” her from a hospital, and her great-grandmother, who risked everything to save a life.
If you seek to restore faith in healthcare—or help spark a revolution—join her free newsletter, Ask The Patient by Dr. Zed Zha!
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
Book Events
🧧
Book Events 🧧
-
January 18, 2025
11 AM - 1 PM
5629 Summitview Ave, Yakima, WA 98908
Have your book signed and your name written in Chinese calligraphy!
-
Saturday February 8th, 2025
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM
291 Main St, PO Box 307, Norwich, VT, 05055
Book Signing!
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.
Book Deal Announcement!
Book Deal Announcement!
Consented: Medical Rape Culture and What We Can Do About It is a doctor’s provocative and deeply personal diagnosis of what is wrong with medicine. Weaving together medical history, current data, and intimate patient stories, Zed writes about her own transformative journey as a patient advocate, calls for a feminist revolution in medicine, and proposes a bold, unifying vision that remedies the trust crisis in medicine.
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.
Award-winning OpeEd
Zed’s MedPage Today opinion piece on the importance of accessing abortions among underprivileged teens won Gold during the 24th Annual Digital Health Awards.
Recent Blog Posts
