Adam Kay's This is Going to Hurt

I also didn't like it. I just didn't think it was funny!

Just to add - he made it clear that they call Obstetrics Twats and Brats in medical school - and like I said, I get the dark humour but his attitude added the misogyny to go along with it.

Just to note that not all of us in families of medics sit about guffawing about women’s birth injuries, as though that’s the only way to cope with some of the worst experiences of the job

I struggled with it too, not the dark humour, that was fine, but the dismissive and patronising obstetric chapters. I read it after having my babies and realised why I might have had the traumatic experiences I did. This thread is quite a relief as before this I’ve mostly read fawning reviews and thought it was just me.

My parents are both medics, and both are very experienced trainers of junior doctors. They both hated it.

I went to his show in London where he reads extracts from the book. His real life retelling of the reason why he stopped being a doctor was harrowing and he clearly still feels absolute devastation over it. He could barely speak for the emotion.

I thought it was terrific - both funny and devastating.

I enjoyed it at first but his clear contempt for his patients made me really dislike him. He said he didn’t like the menopause clinic, seemed to be disgusted by the patients, called them something like “a load of old women with saggy pelvic floors”. Misogyny spoiled the book for me. There are other, funnier books by junior doctors.

Absolutely vile. Particularly the way he wrote about the sex worker who had used a sponge to cover the fact she was on her period. It was all “what a daft cow shoving a sponge up her vag and getting an infection” and going on about the smell.

As a woman who has had ptsd as a result of the care from doctors while in labour this book had me crying tears of frustration and rage for the women he treated. I’m astounded by the amount of people that think it’s hilarious.

I think it must be a work of (partial) fiction. I've worked in A&E for almost 20 years and have only a small handful of "stories", certainly not enough to fill a book.

I thought it was an awful read, deeply misogynistic, sexist and a gruesome reflection of what most of us have been subjected to first hand. I binned my copy when I was done with it.

@daisyjgrey excellent point. If medics find it lighthearted compared to what THEY would be doing, saying, thinking, and all of us mere non-medics find Adam Kay appalling, I honestly dread to think what the medics I've come across when I've been vulnerable are laughing at about me and my situation. And what they're telling their medic friends and laughing about together. Sobering.

I often feel doctors need more training in compassion, but I kind of assumed that AK was up there with the worst. Seems not.

I liked it and didn’t find him sneery or arrogant at all

Hated it.

Wildly misogynistic, and if it is the "tea and cake" of medical experiences, then someone somewhere needs to address the training when it comes to treating patients, particularly birthing women and gynaecological situations, like they're actually humans.

No wonder so many women have birth trauma.

I thought this was laugh out loud funny and have had it recommended several times to me by junior doctors. Loved it! Obviously a lot of it is tongue in cheek so can't be taken too seriously.

Medics have a dark sense of humour. It helps with much of the hideousness of the job.....and I say that as one. When people ask me about the book I always say that the reality is much much worse. If I was to write my memoirs ‘this is going to hurt’ would come across like tea and cake in comparison. I honestly didn’t see any mysogeny in the book.

I remember on a previous thread someone pointed out that good comedy punches up and whereas he very much punches down, you have the privileged male doctor sneering and mocking female patients often at an extremely vulnerable and intimate time. I just don’t see what’s particularly witty or clever about that? The power dynamics are way off.

I had the same issue with this book. He just comes across as unbearably arrogant and a nasty misogynist to boot. It's all played for laughs but there is a really poisonous undercurrent there.

Just started reading this and I'm curious to see these reactions. I haven't found it irritating yet but maybe I will now that it has been pointed out to me.

I quite enjoyed it.

I enjoyed it. However I live in a family of medics, and am one, so much of it resonates. I can understand for a patient perspective it could be harsh!

Found it funny in the early chapters, but found him increasingly arrogant and unnecessarily crass as the book went on. It's been a long time since I read it (actually, I gave up before the end), but I seem to remember him describing being on call and having to attend an emergency with an erection?? WTH? How is that an appropriate or interesting thing to include in a story about someone's medical emergency? I felt a lot of it was written for "shock factor" laughs, but actually really missed the mark and was crude, crass and made me a little disgusted by him.

I thought about buying it for my dd (aspiring doctor) but I decided not to after reading a lot of comments on the book saying that he was misogynistic and disrespectful towards his patients.

Found it really sexist and surprised so many didn’t. Have seen a lot of discussion on twitter where midwives and other professionals and drs in maternity care have criticised the book and called it misogynistic which is heartening, hopefully shows that the attitudes in the book will decline over time. I think (hope) in a few decades it will age badly and seem horribly outdated and sexist to most readers.
There were a few funny bits but it’s mainly a posh white male dr mocking and sneering at predominantly women.