A Memoir · Fall 2026
A Memoir of Transformation, Renewal, and Resilience
About the Book
You can build a life that looks successful on paper — and still feel like something isn't right.
In From Fire to Freedom, Dr. Bertina Hooks shares a deeply personal account of what it means to confront that truth — and what it takes to move through it. From the outside, everything followed the path it was supposed to: a respected career, a clear trajectory, a life shaped by discipline, achievement, and expectation. But beneath the surface, there was a growing sense of misalignment — one that could no longer be ignored.
What unfolds is not a story of sudden change, but of gradual awakening. Through moments of pressure, reflection, and difficult decisions, Dr. Hooks navigates the space between who she was expected to be and who she was becoming. The fire — marked by internal conflict, identity shifts, and the weight of responsibility — becomes the very force that leads her toward something greater: clarity, renewal, and ultimately, freedom.
"I had spent fifteen years training my hands to save others’ lives. I never imagined I would wake up one morning missing part of my own."
— From Fire to FreedomFrom Fire to Freedom is for anyone who has ever felt caught between success and fulfillment, certainty and change, stability and truth. Because sometimes, the life you've built is only the beginning of the life you're meant to live.
Read an Excerpt
This memoir begins at the intersection of survival, identity, medicine, motherhood, and the moment life changes without asking permission.
I had spent fifteen years training my hands to save others’ lives. I never imagined I would wake up one morning missing part of my own.
The night I was diagnosed with necrotizing fasciitis, the infection moved fast. Within hours, I was no longer the physician giving orders but the patient fighting for survival.
The next memory I had was waking up from the anesthesia and looking down at my absent right leg with a wound vac in place pulsating. The white sheets were cold, and I shivered.
“You are a brave and resilient woman,” the anesthesiologist told me.
However, I did not feel resilient. Even though I was grateful to be alive, I was grieving the loss of my limb, career, and future all at once, and it was overwhelming.
As I lay in that cold recovery room, shivering under white sheets, my mind wandered to one of my favorite 90s films: Sliding Doors. I began to see my life as a series of sliding doors — one version where I remained an able-bodied physician, and the one I was now living.
Where did the transition start to occur? What warning signs did I ignore along the way?
Excerpt from From Fire to Freedom“I was ready to live with courage and a voice that refused to be silenced.”
From Fire to Freedom“The sliding door of my amputation was not the end, but a transformation — a Phoenix rising from the ashes of a life I had once thought was predetermined.”
From Fire to FreedomCore Themes
A deeply personal account of what burnout actually looks like from inside the profession — beyond the statistics and into the lived reality that most physicians never speak about publicly.
What happens to your sense of self when the identity you've built your entire life around no longer fits? This book wrestles with that question with unflinching honesty.
Not a motivational platitude, but a practical and spiritual reckoning with how human beings rebuild — and what renewal actually demands of us.
The adversity in this story is both external and internal. It is a story of systems that break people — and of one person who refused to stay broken.
What does it mean to build a life and a career around impact rather than achievement? This book offers a path from credentials to calling.
True transformation is not a rebrand. This memoir maps the full arc — from burning down to rising up — in a way that readers will recognize in their own lives.
About the Author
Dr. Bertina Hooks, MD
I didn't write From Fire to Freedom because I had all the answers. I wrote it because I had lived the questions — and I knew I wasn't the only one.
For years, I watched colleagues suffer in silence. Brilliant, compassionate physicians who had given everything to their patients, their hospitals, and their training — quietly fracturing under the weight of a system that had never asked how they were doing. I was one of them.
What I found on the other side of that chapter of my life wasn't just survival. It was clarity, purpose, and a kind of freedom I hadn't known was possible. I wrote this book so that every physician who reads it knows: the fire was not the end. It was the beginning.
This memoir is also the story behind everything I've built — the Academy, the podcast, the press. It is the foundation. It is the reason.
The Publisher
Amplifying Transformative Voices
Phoenix Ascend Press was founded on a single belief: that some stories are too important to be filtered through systems that were never built to hold them. We exist to give authors the platform, the support, and the freedom to share transformations that matter — stories that help others rise.
From Fire to Freedom is our founding title — and the embodiment of everything this press stands for.
Speaking Engagements
A powerful presence on stage and on screen, Dr. Hooks brings two decades of clinical experience, personal transformation, and coaching wisdom to every speaking engagement. Whether addressing medical conferences, leadership summits, wellness events, or professional development programs, she delivers talks that move audiences — and move them to act.
Available for medical conferences, CME events, leadership summits, hospital grand rounds, wellness programs, and podcast interviews.
Fall 2026 Release
Join the waitlist for early access, exclusive updates from Dr. Hooks, a free physician wellness resource guide, and first notice when pre-orders open.