This Is Going to Hurt

[Wouldloveanother]

I read this book a while ago but just re-skimmed it while bedridden with pregnancy sickness. I’d forgotten how funny it is, although the ending is tragic and poignant. I thought it gave a really good insight into the pressures on maternity staff and why it’s not always realistic for us to have the exact care we want in labour. I think it’s a shame he left medicine, but can see how he lost his nerve and didn’t feel able to go back. Anyone else read it?

I find as someone who has work in the NHS for 2 decades that it gives a useful and realistic, if extremely uncomfortable, insight in to the NHS, its staff and the humour we use to cope, SPOILER ALERT the staff ain't saintly!

Considering the never ending campaigns for smear tests, mammograms, prostate exams etc and how patients "don't need to be embarrassed, we've seen it all before" then the NHS need to step their PR game up when it comes to ex-medics releasing books...trust is thin on the ground as it is.

the book is not new though

One of his songs and not even the worst (though it is to me)

Your baby's got Trisomy

He'll have abnormal motor function
That's to meiotic non-dysjunction
You shouldn't have kids at 53
He'll have severe mental retardation
How would you feel about a termintation
I doubt he'll live past 10 years old
Check out his epicanthic folds and his single palmar crease
A bit of a mong your baby
Your baby has trisom, it's what he will die from,
Your baby has trisomy.

The way he spoke about women in the book was vile. I’m glad he’s left medicine if that’s what he thinks of us.

@LadyCampanulaTottington Do you honestly think men can’t be vulnerable? Tell that to my male cancer patients.

Once a month your girl's upset
She goes to Boots to buy Lilets
It happens every 28 days,
When she's in her Luteal phase.
All she does in moan and nag,
You go five days without a shag
There's no cunnilingus
You can only use your fingers
When she's using a menstrual rag.

And his lovely song about women in the north:

Northern birds are lazy ugly whores who smell of burgers
So don't have too much to drink
Or you might fuck one
And end up getting aids

There's nothing fun
To be found off the M1
Northern birds are lower class
Slags who take it up the arse

They're in the sack
After one cider and black
But they're fucking awful rides
and your dick won't touch the sides

No I think anything other than ‘a woman’s body belongs to her and nobody else’ is veering on very dangerous territory.

I can't think he's generally well-meaning after hearing those

I don't think anyone is under the illusion that all staff are saints. Blurring the lines between talking amongst colleagues and writing a book to line your pockets I don't think is overly helpful though. I work in a department where sadly lots of women are much more poorly than need be as they were embarrassed to get checked out until it reached a peak, some wven refuse potentially life saving checks and treatments because they cannot overcome that. Stuff like this doesn't help, does it? Along with his other 'works' I think it's plain to see who he is.

I thought the book was hysterical (apart from the end, obvs) so shoot me! My late DH was Forces & them & medical / police etc all use black humour to get through the day.
Didn't see it on TV, only watch documentaries on there.

f you really have to
Go up north then follow our advice
Fight away the women
Or you'll find yourself with Pubic lice
And herpes
Your much better staying in the South
Northern Birds
Are desperate ugly hippos dressed in Burberry
With a peanut for a brain
And an accent that makes you want to die

Now you've been warned
They're all physically deformed
Northern birds
Are all obese
And they're riddled with disease

Try to escape
Northern sex is worse than rape
Stay down south and mark my words
Stear well clear of northern birds

Utterly vile. No one goes to hospital and expects to be an anecdote for someone else's amusement.

Of course the final decision should belong to the woman (or any patient). But how can anyone make medical decisions unless they have someone with medical knowledge to guide them? What do you suggest patients base decisions on if not guidance from their doctors?

I wouldn't write a book about it though to get money 🤣🤣😩. It's like he's broken some unspoken rule. I'm definitely not proud of some of the jokes I've told. It's definitely a defense mechanism for trauma I have seen some horrendous things and we try to support each other through it in private not in ear shot of patients.

There is a long tradition of med students writing parody songs, so the verses that Adam Kay wrote are nothing new.

There used to be an awesome Parody video on youtube of Take Thats Patience ('Patients') by Students from Cardiff Med School. The boys in it will now be Consultants if they stuck with it, and I can no longer find the Video, but they did manage to get the lyrics "Vaginas Warty and smelly not like you see on the telly" to the music, which whilst vulgar is still pretty funny.

He's a vile, vile man and I'm another one thankful that his audience these days is people who fall for the hilarity of his twats and brats' anecdotes and not actual patients.
The hatred for women, the disabled and the elderly is abhorrent. It's not comedy. It's disgusting.

I found it...

Enjoy, or me offended, whichever why you lean.

It’s the infernal question isn’t it. How do doctors given advice that is neither slack nor coercive, neither ‘scaremongering’ nor underplaying the risk. It’s basically an impossible task as every woman will have her own view of this.

I also think it’s a bit of a ‘shoot the messenger’, essentially a doctor only becomes necessary if something is going wrong in labour, which isn’t what anyone wants. So they’re never going to offer anything appealing, or break ‘good’ news.

Regaling people with tales about a sex workers smelly fanny HAHAHAHAAHA

Fucking hilarious 🙄

That is pure misogyny, and you can't argue otherwise.

I really didn't like the book and am flabbergasted that women find it funny. The best thing he did was leave the NHS.

So is the anecdote about the degloved ‘spaghetti’ penis misandry?

I mean I can see the arguments for it being a breach of trust or crude. But not misogynistic.

OP would be cool with it. She’s very cool. 😎

The tv series was much better than the book.

This.