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 didn’t see him that way at all, it did confirm to me though how out of their depth a lot of junior doctors are and how much responsibility is on their shoulders (especially at night). Such a sad ending with the mum and baby whose labour went wrong :(

He can't have relayed every experience in the book, so the fact that he chose to relay that statement, obviously thinking it funny, gives a clue as to how he thought.

Sorry BertrandRussell I can see I somewhat gave the game away there. I also like JoB, didn’t know he was a Mumsnet Most hated. Why?

I gave up on it. Apart from the misogyny, I didn't like the style of writing.

Hmmmn I started reading it but didn’t actually enjoy it enough to finish it . I am a registered nurse and found it rather boring and samey! Another friend read it and loved it and she isn’t in the medical profession.Each to their own I guess.

I remember there was some catastrophe at the end, a placental abruption where the baby died, I think? It finished his medical career. What about the poor woman and the baby?

“He can't have relayed every experience in the book, so the fact that he chose to relay that statement, obviously thinking it funny, gives a clue as to how he thought”
My thought was that because he couldn’t relay everything, he relayed the things that gave the most vivid and immediate picture of the world they were in. I don’r think he said it for comedy value. But I could be wrong.

Another one who loved it! I have a dark sense of humour, love medical documentaries etc anyway and have spent extensive time in hospitals though

“What about the poor woman and the baby?”

I don't think you can accuse him of lacking empathy. He gave up his career, one he trained for his whole life, a career that cost him relationships with friends and a partner. He gave it up because he lost a woman and a baby and couldn't get over it.

That is not the action of a person lacking empathy.

Sorry.
“What about the poor woman and the baby?”
What do you mean? He talks about how awful it was, how the underresourcing of the NHS contributed to it and how badly doctors are trained to deal with tragedy.

I didn’t find it misogynistic at all - he’s just as snide about the men! It’s obvious he’s retelling stories through a particular lens and actually I think at the heart of the dark humour to it is a fury at how many women are let down by the systemic failures in the NHS.

I think the birth plan comment was about a woman who raised a complaint after having not been allowed to light scented candles next to an oxygen tank. It’s not misogynistic to point out that that’s fucking stupid!

Didn't sense any misogyny. It's a book from a junior doctor's perspective, not a patient or any other healthcare worker. It will be all the frustration, vitriol, success, failure felt by the author - it's not meant as balanced discussion or narrative.

My birth plan was to do whatever it takes to get the baby out and get us both home alive and well (and also I rather not have a catheter unless I must). Maybe be this is a reflection of my personality and the type of personality that would like this book.

I had a feeling that "home delivery is for pizza not babies" (or something along those lines) wouldn't go down well with midwives.

CheersPeregrina I am only half way though it! I am enjoying it so far, DD keeps asking me why I am in hysterics, as some of it does make me laugh out loud. Not the incidents themselves I hasten to add, but how he writes about them. I could probably understand why this would not amuse HCPs.

I found that his suggestion for pelvic floor exercises - "Imagine you're sitting in a bath of eels, and you really really don't want any of them to get in!" worked much better for me than the description of the exercises on the leaflet I was given after prolapse surgery

I didn’t have that reading of it at all. I thought the point was, as PP says, they were trained to get babies out and keep women alive and it didn’t matter what destruction was left behind. That’s what I read as the, I thought, wry comment about the forceps delivery of mother and baby alive.

I agree he has empathy....he cried over the lost woman and baby and found no longer handle being a doctor.

Bertrand “I don’r think he said it for comedy value. But I could be wrong.”

Book sales + show, he must be going for whatever sells.

Thanks OP, I won’t bother, I had a feeling it would be too depressing anyway.

I just learnt not to recommend it to pregnant women. I read it while pregnant and wish I'd waited. Not sure why my friend recommended it to me at that point in my life.

I don’t think all of it is strictly true- the bit about the ‘heart rate with 60 beats per minute’ is apparently a v old and tired urban myth/joke. So there will be imaginary bits inserted in as well as exaggerated situations.

And I'm not surprised that midwives hate it. It's written by a doctor and doctors never ever ever see "natural births", they merely oversee over-medicalised living nightmares where they rip up women's birth plans in front of them while laughing evilly.

Yup. Agreed. I thought I was alone in hating it. Couldn't finish it, everyone at work rolled their eyes when I tried to explain why I wasn't a fan (read it during my first pregnancy, paused, continued after having had DD)

I enjoyed it a lot, despite reading it not lonh after giving birth, which might not have been the best idea! I know what you mean about how some of the women may have seen the situation very differently to him, but I do think that's part of his point - especially at the end when he talks about how experience makes all doctors over cautious because they're haunted by trying to prevent a repeat of the worst birth they ever saw.

I also thought the stuff about the private hospital was pretty terrifying.

What about the poor woman and the baby

Err... that was the entire point of the last anecdote. The terrible events that happened to that family and how he couldn't continue with his career even though the same would have happened to any surgeon she was under the care of.
If she has been at home, she would have died.

“Book sales + show, he must be going for whatever sells.

Thanks OP, I won’t bother, I had a feeling it would be too depressing anyway.”

I think that is massively unfair.