Author’s Bio

This is Going to Hurt was written by Adam Kay. In this book he shares his personal anecdotes as a doctor working in the British National Health Service (NHS) during early 2000s. His recollections come from a diary he kept, detailing the ups and downs of life on the wards. Kay was inspired to write this book after a senior member of the government had made a claim that junior doctors, expecting to work less than 79 hours per week, were greedy. In This is Going to Hurt, Kay shows us the extremes of being a young doctor in the modern NHS.

Who is the Target Audience?

This is Going to Hurt is suitable for all those interested professionals or amateurs who find the life of doctors to be scintillating reading. Kay doesn’t spare us the gritty facts of life of a junior doctor and later a Senior Registrar. In this book there are some really funny tales and some truly dreadful stories of life and death. If you enjoy blood and guts descriptions of desperately sad and appalling ends, then you may enjoy the wild ride hanging on the white coat tails of Dr. Kay. If you are British, you may also gain a greater appreciation for the young medics that you interact with during your health visits.

Synopsis

The most significant part of This is Going to Hurt is dedicated to the abuse and neglect that many doctors are exposed to working within the British NHS. Dr. Kay discloses the scarcity of essential amenities required for proper medical care in the NHS. He explains the long hours of unpaid work forced upon doctors. He describes the lack of sleep and the abandonment of family, friends, and holidays. Worst of all, he describes how the enumeration is woefully inadequate for the myriad of drawbacks. Ultimately, after long periods of neglect by his employers a life altering incident prompts a change in his thinking and eventually leads him on a new path.

Conclusion

Adam gives us a view of the true life of a doctor on the wards of a British NHS hospital. He reminds us that doctors are only human. They are not infallible; they need love, care, and respect as we all do. They have the failings we all share and he prompts us to realize that. Most of all he wants us to understand that neglecting those who care for us is dreadful and that we should value and cherish the sacrifices; social, financial and psychological that doctors working in the NHS endure to provide you with world class health service.

Acknowledgment

My sincere thanks go to: NetGalley, and Picador for affording me the opportunity to review This is Going to Hurt.

The ideal holiday gift for anyone in the medical profession. Truly funny and surprisingly insightful, sometimes heartbreaking, this book, in the form of diary entries of a young doctor in the UK from the mid-Oughties to 2010, reveals that the hospital system itself is a disaster, whether a country has national health care or not. The hospital system turns trainee doctors into zombies working 90+ hour weeks, and we can all agree that this is dangerous for patients.

I disagree strongly with the author on obstetric care (he is actually pro-elective cesarean and sees natural birth as a form of Russian roulette) but Kay was doing the best he could within the framework he'd been given, and cared about his patients a great deal. I can see how the hospital does not allow time for anything better than strapping birthing women to machines and shoving instruments into them at the first sign of any possible deviation from perfection (a "trace" from the fetal monitor).

The Royal College Gynaecology and Obstetrics website states that this is not recommended practice ten years later, but has the UK reformed labor wards to allow time for changing the mother's position, stopping oxytocin, giving fluids to the mother, etc. etc.? These diary entries make it clear that Kay had no time or energy for any alternatives and once performed 5 cesarean sections in a single evening. I would not have wanted to be #5.

People are bizarre, and Kay encounters the gamut of weird to completely insane patients, and his writing is wonderful. I was only disappointed that he didn't record more of these anecdotes (although the poor fellow needed to sleep sometime). The book contains a very satisfying number of gross-out stories involving bodily fluids. Kay also talks about how his life inside the hospital infringed on his personal life in a manner that was sometimes satisfying and rewarding, but far more often, just the opposite.

Kay is exactly the sort of person we all want to be our doctor (not for my births but for anything else). He's kind, he's compassionate, he's willing to give straight answers. With some exceptions, the hospital system is set up for monstrous narcissists and heartless automatons to succeed at being full-fledged physicians and for good guys like Kay to be chewed up and spat out, and national health care will not fix this problem. This is a good book to laugh along to, but also a book to begin that discussion.

"There may well be a light at the end of the tunnel, but the tunnel is eighty-five miles long, crammed full of impacted feces, and I have to eat my way out of it."

Adam Kay is reminiscent of a younger, British, former-doctor version of David Sedaris. I heart David Sedaris. And I do not make Sedaris comparisons all willy-nilly. Hey, that almost rhymed!

This Is Going to Hurt is Kay's debut memoir about his time as a junior doctor in the UK, which is mostly comprised of diary entries he logged between 2004 and 2010. As someone who spent her working hours between 2004 and 2010 mostly parked in front of a computer screen (yawn), I found the stories to be fascinating, hilarious, and sometimes nearly unbelievable. From extracting diverse objects (including a remote control, a toilet brush, a doll head, and a Kinder egg) from various orifices (I need not list them here; you know what they are) to dealing with a patient who drank other patients' urine samples to finding a spoon that had been left inside a woman post-op forty years prior, Kay saw his share of the strange things we humans do.

The footnotes along the way outlining various medical terms and procedures were immensely beneficial to my understanding of the materiel presented. But be warned: "I'm all for explaining terminology as we go along, but if you don't know what a stethoscope is, this is probably a book to regift."

Although much of the book is funny, Kay also gives the reader a look into the excessively long hours, terrible pay, and extreme stress that are the baggage that comes with being a doctor. And even though he opens the book confessing that he quit the profession in 2010, reading the story outlining the details as to why was absolutely heartbreaking. "Sorry for the spoiler, but by the way, you knew the iceberg was coming in Titanic, and you watched that all the same."

I shall close this review with a final word of advice: Do Not. Under Any Circumstances. Eat Foodstuffs While Reading This Book.

"A horror story. Patient GL, whose genetic makeup appears to be 50 percent goji-berry recipes and 50 percent yoga mats, has announced she wants to eat her placenta."

Thanks to Kay, NetGalley, and Little, Brown and Company for this ARC of the US-ivised version of this book which came with a handy-dandy conversion chart between US and UK doctor types, along with other US-ivised stuff that enhanced my understanding of the material presented. Yes, I know I just made up US-ivised. That's how I roll.

Great book with real life stories of Adam Kay’s world as a junior doctor. What makes this different from a lot of medical stories is that the author lays his feelings on the table, and it was refreshing.

This was so well done, and so hilariously funny! I loved the explanations of different terms an American would need to make sense of his story, and I loved the funny stories and also the heartbreaking ones. Very good medical memoir.

This book is written by a doctor in the UK with explanations when the US and UK situations or wording would be slightly different. It was made up mainly of anecdotes about situations he saw while in practice. I enjoyed the stories; they were gory and fun and interesting. I did not enjoy that the author seemed to make every little thing into a footnote. While reading on my kindle it very much interrupted the flow to go back and forth between the text and the footnotes. This really affected my enjoyment of the book.

*4.5 stars*
Thoroughly, thoroughly, thoroughly recommend this book. It had all of the funny hospital anecdotes of Grey's Anatomy without the heartbreak that comes every forty-five minutes. That being said, it also carries an important message and was an important read, despite being snarky and hilarious for a large majority of the book. It was also a fascinating look into the NHS, which I have been previously completely unfamiliar with due to living in America. I will definitely be reading more from Adam Kay in the future and would recommend this to anyone who isn't too squeamish about blood. (It's not overly gory, but it does take place in a hospital)

I can't say a book has ever made me laugh so much AND made me have PTSD flashback of my time in healthcare. Poignant and sadly realistic. There is a lot of humor mixed with sad anecdotes to remind you that not everyone gets a happy story. I really enjoyed this book. And I think its a must read, especially for anyone in the health industry. Or for those who aren't for that matter.

***Copy obtained from Little, Brown and Company via Netgalley***

I really enjoyed this book. Adam’s writing is honest, often funny, and heartbreakingly real. I appreciated the insight into the lives of doctors and felt genuinely sad by the ending. I thought the conclusion could have used a bit more content but all in all I really liked this one. It makes me think differently about my doctors.

This book was…laugh-out-loud hilarious? Painfully sad? Excellent validation that I made the right choice in not becoming a doctor? Honestly, all of the above. With candor and a never-ending stream of (often dark) humor, this collection of journal entries by a former medical resident paints a vivid picture of all parts of the medical profession: the funny, the bizarre, the awful, the heartwarming, the disgusting, the personal.

First, a brief disclaimer: the original version of this book was published in 2017 in the UK. After its wild success, and comments that it resonated with doctors in other countries as well, who had copies imported from across the pond (or across the globe), someone had the fantastic idea to make a US version of it. You know, change some of the British-isms to American vernacular, add some more context for bits about the British government and health system, and so on. So while this is an ARC for a book releasing in December, it has been around for a while, just in a different form.

As is often the case with nonfiction, a summary won’t do you much good here. Basically, Adam Kay decided he wanted to go into medicine somewhat arbitrarily while in high school, because, you know, we expect kids to know what they want to do with the rest of their lives already even when their brains aren’t fully formed yet. Common sense, right? He elected to go into obstetrics and gynecology, having heard that this was the easiest branch to go into. Over his years as a house officer and/or registrar (the UK version of what Americans call a resident and/or intern), he kept a journal of all the goings-on at his place of work. This book is a compilation of those journal entries.

Right off the bat, in case I haven’t made it clear enough yet, this book is, in many places, laugh-out-loud hilarious. I had to be careful about reading it in public sometimes for fear that I would burst out in a stupid grin or an actual snort of laughter. Even as he describes his experiences going to hell and back (which is almost a literal definition; he did once deliver a baby named “Sayton,” pronounced like Satan), he manages to infuse all but the most serious moments with snark and self-awareness of the sheer insanity of it all.


SCBU (pronounced “Scaboo”) is the Special Care Baby Unit; NICU is the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit; PICU is the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit; and PIKACHU is a type of Pokémon.


Seriously, patients do dumb stuff. Objectively, we know this to be true, but you don’t really understand it until you are reading about the doctors who see it all: the things people put up various orifices (a Kinder egg with a wedding ring inside, placed inside a certain part of female anatomy?), the absurd questions they ask, the stupid things they do just to prove a point (yes, there was a literal dick-in-a-fan incident)…it’s hard to comprehend just how insane doctors must think people are until you really see it all in one place. Especially when that one place is narrated by an incredulous physician who peppers the whole thing with footnotes both clarifying points and adding his own opinions.


If you describe a grandparent as being old-fashioned, it’s a euphemism for “casually racist.” In a hospital setting, it means “unsupportive.” You’re on your own.


That’s not to say that this book is all “hardy-har-har-let’s-laugh-at-medical-nonsense,” though. What makes this book really work, and what keeps it from being a nonstop stream of jokes without real substance, is its recognition of the flaws inherent in the British medical system. To my understanding, many of these flaws are pervasive in medical systems across the globe, too, so this isn’t overly Anglo-centric. The hours are awful, with long shifts that don’t allow for enough sleep. You’re expected to stay for extra hours past the end of your shift if needed, and you don’t get paid overtime for that. Heck, the pay isn’t even that good to begin with. Requesting a day off is rarely going to actually work, as you can (and probably will) still be called in at the last minute.


I told a patient that his MRI wouldn’t be until next week and he threatened to break both my legs. My first thought was Well, it’ll be a couple weeks off work. I was this close to offering him a baseball bat.


These shortcomings mean that being a doctor, while you are in theory helping people, is likely to cause you personal harm in the process. Kay missed major events in both his own life and his friends’ lives because of his work schedule. It wreaked havoc on his relationships, both personal and romantic. While the stories in this book are not focused much on his outside life, his jabs at the system and comments here and there about his personal problems weave an underlying narrative of a man who, like so many others in his profession, is being drained by a job that asks too much. We like to think of doctors as being selfless, noble, well-paid, and respected, but in reality, they’re no better off than most of us–and, in many case, actually have it worse.



I should have had counseling–in fact, my hospital should have arranged it. But there’s a mutual code of silence that keeps help from those who need it most.


And as if the job isn’t enough, another recurring theme throughout the book is when his personal life and career would overlap. Apparently, being a doctor means your friends think you are the person to call and ask about any medical problem they have, never mind that you may specialize in only one area that has literally nothing to do with their issue. Sketchy consultations? Check. Awkward surgery? Been there, done that. Recognized by former patients in public? Yup. Again, it’s a very strange juxtaposition that you don’t often see in other careers, and even the tamer stories in this book are nothing short of eye-opening and revelatory.

Quick note: the ending of the book is actually very sad, culminating with the event that made Kay decide to leave medicine and move on to a completely different job (writing comedy, which is what he does now!), and you can probably guess what sort of story that is. Poignant, upsetting, and illuminating the disastrous toll that the medical profession can take on the mental health of practitioners. Though, to be fair, you can tell even from the skillful narration of this book, with pitch-perfect jokes on every page, that humor is more of a strong suit for Kay than medicine ever was.

So why not a full five stars? As much as I enjoyed the humor in this book, there were a few moments where I felt like maybe the author took it a little too far. For instance, there was one joke about how being a doctor is more stressful than piloting a plane when a terrorist tries to take over, and there were several sex-related jokes that were more uncomfortable than humorous to me. (That said, there were also quite a few on the same topic that were still incredibly funny, but some missed the mark. I guess that’s going to be the case in most comedy–not every joke is for everyone.)

Still, I strongly recommend this one. It makes you laugh, and it makes you think. It is the medical equivalent of the “Don’t Be a Lawyer” song from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend–which is definitely a good thing. And if you're considering going into medicine, this will help make sure you go into it clear-eyed and wholly disillusioned, because yes: this job is going to hurt, in more ways than one.

TRIGGER/CONTENT WARNINGS: death of a child, death of a parent, lots of blood, lots of genital-related content (all in a medical context, of course), side character with depression

This was better than I thought it was going to be and overall it was pretty decent read.. All the anecdotes were good throughout and some of the British laws for medicine were a bit lost on me. I did like that there were elaborations when the author felt something needed to be explained further, it made up for some of the dryness in the storytelling. I have read other behind-the-medicine books before and this was not as humorous to me. All in all, acceptably good read.

Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for ARC in exchange for an honest review.

With things the broken disaster they are with the American health care system, it was interesting to read about being a Dr on the other side of the ocean as part of the NHS. Adam shares his diaries of his time during different levels of his training as an OBGYN. A lot of the stories are pretty hilarious, however you could really understand how he would have gotten burned out and decided to move on to something else. I thought this author was definitely a great writer and found it intriguing that now he is a TV screen writer.

This Is Going To Hurt by Adam Kay is a fantastic memoir about Adam’s experience as a doctor and it’s both sad and funny. I am intrigued by health and medicine so I was especially interested in reading details and insight from the “front lines” of care. I don’t think I should be heading into medical school anytime soon.

Synopsis:

Adam Kay was a junior doctor from 2004 until 2010, before a devastating experience on a ward caused him to reconsider his future. He kept a diary throughout his training, and This Is Going to Hurt intersperses tales from the front line of the NHS with reflections on the current crisis. The result is a first-hand account of life as a junior doctor in all its joy, pain, sacrifice and maddening bureaucracy, and a love letter to those who might at any moment be holding our lives in their hands.

This is based in England so if you are looking for an expose on American hospitals and doctors, you won’t find it here. I always love British humor and all things England related so I really enjoyed this book though I did cringe several times while reading it.

Get it here now and clear your afternoon so you can read it in one sitting!

Loved! As someone who works at a hospital, in a non clinical role but hears many stories; Adam's perspective was very entertaining. Though it has its humorous components, the story does show the toll it takes on an individual and how they family life may suffer. I appreciated the author being so raw and sharing his experiences. Would love to read more from him.

I really really really enjoyed this book. It made me laugh in so many spots. I'll admit I shed a few tears also. As the child of a nurse I thought I had heard everything, but no I hadn't. I will reccomend this book to anyone who wants a medical based book.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing this book in exchange for an honest review.
This is a humorous and confessional book that had me hooked from the beginning. Having worked in the medical field before, I could relate to some of this diary entries. I recommend this book to anyone who needs a good laugh and isn't too grossed out by descriptions.

Wonderful read! Had me in tears laughing multiple times. I could visualize exactly what was going on in each situation due to Adam Kay's perfect descriptions. I very much enjoyed this book!

I cannot say ENOUGH about this book. I'm not in the medical field, but found myself reading late at night and before work in the morning, then sharing excerpts with my co-workers. It was thought provoking and poignant, but also laugh-out-loud, and I'm not in the medical field. I loved this book and can't wait to recommend it to my patrons!

Besides wanting to be a nurse in Kindergarten until I found out they dealt with blood, I don’t know a lot about the medical profession. My husband comes from a family of nurses and I now have a newfound respect for those who work in the medical field.

Adam Kay was on a career path to be a doctor in the UK before a tough loss caused him to quit and become a writer instead. Before reading the book, I wondered what on earth would make someone leave a career they had already spent years working their way up the rungs in? Now I understand a little better.

The book is mostly humorous stories of very little sleep and some entertaining patients and it doesn’t delve into serious territory until the very end. I liked the stories (which I believe came from Kay’s actual journals from the time). They were short and funny and had footnotes that explained some of the more technical things without getting too wordy and boring.

I also really enjoyed reading how the medical field works in the UK versus the US. Kay was training to be an OB/GYN (or “obs and gynae” in UK-speak) so most of the stories centered around female health and pregnancies. As a female, I loved hearing about these things from the doctor’s perspective.

Overall, this was a solid, interesting book. It’s a mostly easy, fun read but it does end on sort of a downer.

Equal parts irreverently funny and shockingly confessional, This Is Going To Hurt is Adam Kay's semi-memoir and call out to the medical establishment. Based upon diary entries during his years as a doctor in Britain's NHS system, each day reveals the cutting mind and sense of humor needed to survive the stress, sleep deprivation, and (in many cases) the actions of the patients themselves. A startling insight into the basic humanity of people some consider to be superhuman was humbling and I like to think I walked away from this book with a better sense of compassion for those in charge of our health care.

A special thank you to Netgalley for providing me with a free advanced copy of the U.S. version of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.