To have hated ‘This is going to hurt’ by Adam Kay?

[SweetMelodies]

Just that really. So many recommendations to read it from others, it seems to have so much praise and is a number 1 seller.

I like to think I have a good sense of humour and sometimes a pretty dark one at that but I just found the book absolutely dripping in misogyny. Sure it IS well-written and he is obviously a very talented writer and some bits were indeed funny... but a lot of it really turned my stomach, the language, the way he speaks about women, his really narrow-minded attitude towards birth that isn’t evidence-based at all, just based the very limited picture of birth he has. He clearly puts the women in a category of ‘other’ and ‘less than’.

I did feel terrible for him having experienced the dreadful situation at the end and it did highlight how overworked drs can be... but at the same time I think the language and attitudes displayed in it really summarised the paternal and disrespectful attitudes in the maternity system that lead to so many women traumatised by childbirth.

Despite this I appear to be completely alone in this way of thinking, did anyone else not get a great feel from this (or parts of this) book?

I am, not are...dammit.

I totally agree OP. Reading it I thought 'I'm glad I wasn't one of his patients'

WHY certain women are making the decisions that some drs may disagree with

My second DC was a home delivery (not planned but that's how it went) - we had midwifery support.
I bled after delivery - the midwife checked me and said it was fine. My husband and I insisted I went into hospital - I had retained products and had them removed (it was not a pleasant experience and one, in retrospect, I should have complained about).
However, afterwards the midwife said she was sorry I didn't have a the full home birth experience. That really struck me - the idea that the fact I went into hospital was somehow not the "ideal". These things happen, I am alive, my child is alive - the rest doesn't matter.

Secondly, one our NCT mum friends said how well we had all done in not having had a c-section. She had been led to feel that anything other than a normal vaginal delivery was a form of failure.

The information provided to expectant mothers is poorly delivered at best that many women have a deep distrust of hospital care from the outset. Therefore, any intervention makes them feel like they may have failed, resent the medical staff that have "done it to them" and feel psychological traumatised afterwards.

And as has been said on the thread numerous times, he never said that the birth plans of sexual abuse survivors should be mocked or ignored.

He's expressing his irritation about a subset of women who want whale music and laminated pages.

Except he didn’t disregard the birth plans of women with birth trauma and sexual abuse survivors.

I understand some of the pressures of working in healthcare. I do, after all, work in healthcare

Working in healthcare is not the same as being a junior doctor. I trained at the same time as AK. I would have to go to work on a Saturday morning and not leave til Monday evening, often with no sleep during that time. 8 shifts of nurses and midwives would have come and gone during the same period.

Exactly @XXstatic. Rather than getting upset about some perceived misogyny, we should all be getting furious about a system that has junior doctors falling asleep from exhaustion making life and death decisions. Not just in obs and gynae but in every part of health care. Do you all get so upset about a sleep deprived junior doctor treating your child in A&E? Or being the only doctor awake in the entire hospital when your dad’s had a heart attack? Because your birth plan’s the least of your worries.

Alsohuman

But it's all part of the same system! A stupidly run, macho system where putting professionals through some type of hazing is regarded as part of training. A system where you are trained to suck it up, get on with it, never mind the cost.

It's not a zero sum game. I supported the junior docs' strike and the NHS action Party (remember that?). I lived with postgrad medics who did insane hours.

I also think that medicine has a hell of a lot of institutionalised misogyny which is particularly prevalent in obs and gynae.

I just said it’s the same system, ffs!

XXcstatic, am I only allowed to comment if I've trained as a junior doctor? As I've said, I understand he was under great pressure. I understand it's gallows humour but I don't think that causes or excuses misogyny.

And, Alsohuman, are we only allowed to dislike one thing at a time?

I work for the NHS and have been a secondary teacher and I resent the way we run our public services. I think the he's pretty sexist at times. Not mutually exclusive.

@OunceOfFlounce So you're not even a clinician? Pretty disingenuous to say that you've "worked in healthcare" in the context of this thread, then. Of course you can comment, but don't pretend to have knowledge of AK's working conditions.

I am clinical staff XXcstatic. Is your argument that there is one specific level of stress only acheiveable by junior doctors that makes sexist language excusable?

Again, I get he was under great strain and you can say and do dark things in those situations. However, no matter the level of stress, it just would never occur to me to refer to a women who has recently had multiple sexual partners as being 'bow legged' because I am not that sexist (I think we are all a little bit, having been raised in a patriarchal society).

However, no matter the level of stress, it just would never occur to me to refer to a women who has recently had multiple sexual partners as being 'bow legged' because I am not that sexist

Neither would I. But the whole point of the book is to be a warts and all expose of working conditions in the NHS, which inevitably includes sexism since - as you say - it is everywhere. He is an intelligent guy - I am sure he is well aware that many of the anecdotes don't portray him in a particularly positive light. Again, that's the point of the book. I am mystified by posters who seem to want a sanitised version. What would be the value of that?

AK was NOT taking the piss out of all birth plans. He was taking the piss out of the nine page whale music bollocks.

Numerous HCPs on this thread have said there is nothing wrong with birth plans which cover reasonable requests such as in cases of pervious sexual abuse. AK himself didn't take the piss out of those.

Purely out of the type of woman who does right a 9 page birth plan and has an absolute meltdown if any of it is deviated from - even to the detriment of their own child.

These idiots exist - of course they do.

You are conflating AK's irritation at that type of woman and her birth plan, with ALL women and all birth plans. The two are not the same and he doesn't say they are.

To maintain your belief that the two things are the same, you are calling the woman a made up caricarure. Believe me, she won't be.

That may not be a comfortable truth for you, but it is nonerheless the truth.

Women with birth plans to help inform their choices and care, especially in light of their own history = good!

Woman with nine pages including whale song putting her child at risk through intransigence = idiot.

‘he decided to specialise in obstetrics and gynaecology, or "brats and twats" as Kay referred to it as’

Just googled the book and this is the first thing I saw... not too desperate to read it after that

*write not right!

So basically we agree. We both do think of the book as being sexist.

I didn't ever say I wanted a sanitised version - my argument is with all the posters saying they didn't see any misogyny at all. That is where a lot of PPs disagree with the OP to the point where they've wondered if they read the same book.

And given that so many posters deny any sexism in the book and say they found it hilarious, a lot of people may well think it paints the author in a good light (though not the way the NHS is run, obviously).

Sorry, thread's moved on. My latest post is a reply to XXcstatic

Nope, I loved it. I'm a HCP and I found it excruciatingly honest. Doctors and nurses aren't wonderful Jesus-like creatures - they are flawed with their own deeply ingrained biases like all who walk the planet.

I feel sad that those who read the book didn't find the most outrageous thing was how doctors are treated, what a difficult job they have and how poorly the NHS treats them.

Tbf, "brats and twats" was how AK's medical school referred to the dept, it's not his own term.

He didn’t coin the term “brats and twats” - lots of people call it that.

It's a brilliant book and I saw no misogyny.

I find it both hilarious and extremely disheartening that posters are having the vapours about what medics call things behind closed doors.

As long as they don't use those terms to your face, why do you care?

The reaction of posters to the truths that AK writes is part of why so many HCPs are leaving the NHS. The expectstiin that HCPs will treat patients with the utmost of humanity, empathy, respect and professionalism is fine for that HCPs interactions with patients.

If they have to retain those standards behind closed doors to their peers, in their own diaries and even their own thoughts, then that is posters failing to display humanity or empathy towards HCPs.

I refuse to believe that posters complaining on here have never gone home from work and had an unprofessional, less than charitable thought about one of their clients. It is human nature.

So HCPs are expected to retain their humanity whilst not displaying human nature behind closed doors.

Coupled with the pressure that HCPs are subjected to every day, from funding cuts, staffing issues, and a public that expect the highest levels of professionalism both towards patients AND now in the HCPs own thoughts FGS, and it makes complete sense that so many of us are leaving.

There is an irony that it is those HCPs who show the most humanity, who make the best HCPs, who are the ones effected most by these demands and leave.

Are posters really not aware that their unrealistic attitudes contribute to the pressure that HCPs face? And that the NHS in crumbling, in part because of HCPs no longer being able to meet these unrealistic expectations?

It is truly dismal to see the lack of humanity towards HCPs, that posters are simultaneously demanding is extended to themselves in person (fine) but also behind the scenes and in an HCPs own thoughts.

I truly hope that they are on hand to retrain and replace those of us who have left the NHS. Seeing as how they will only ever show 100% perfect actions, words and thoughts. Good luck with that!

But Joanna a book is hardly behind closed doors?
And it's not gallows hunoyr

It’s the epitome of gallows humour. HTH.