This is Going to Hurt - starts 8th Feb

[ouch321]

I loved the book of this by Adam Kay. I know others weren't so keen.
BBC has dramatised this and starts in early Feb. Just a heads up for others who liked the book.

Just tried to watch the first episode and had to switch it off as found it so misogynistic. Was watching with my husband and 20 year old daughter. Husband agreed with me and didn’t want my daughter to see men having this trivialising attitude to childbirth. Horrible man and glad he is out of the profession.

I don't think the author is anti women to be honest , but maybe others are picking up on things I'm not ? He hasn't much ' bed side ' manner , but most of the NHS is like this isn't it ? Especially some horrible doctors I've come across in the past , most people have some interaction with the NHS at some stage in their lives and it's not always fabulous, they do tend to have a superior attitude and seem to regard ' patients as an inconvenience most of the time too. Sad , but true.

Made me thing we should all insist on female obs/gyn staff.

@the80sweregreat

I don't think the author is anti women to be honest , but maybe others are picking up on things I'm not ? He hasn't much ' bed side ' manner , but most of the NHS is like this isn't it ? Especially some horrible doctors I've come across in the past , most people have some interaction with the NHS at some stage in their lives and it's not always fabulous, they do tend to have a superior attitude and seem to regard ' patients as an inconvenience most of the time too. Sad , but true.

Tend to agree. I think he would behave similarly in Urology for example with catheters, prostates, utis etc.

At the bottom line, he can’t see that childbirth is not just ‘another procedure’. It’s a defining moment in most women’s and fathers lives and he is not treating it with the respect that deserves. He is awful and so glad he left the profession. I couldn’t get past the first episode - treating patients like the way he did is appalling. The fault is with him and I don’t doubt the pressures are huge but the bottom line is he treated people dreadfully at a key point in their lives

I agree with the pp who said that misogyny occurs here because of the existing power imbalance between men and women.

A male doctor treating men badly isn't as bad simply because they are on a more equal footing to start with.

And I’ve had three children on the NHS and been treated fantastically with all births. Not a single male in sight thank goodness.

@Teenagetrouble

Made me thing we should all insist on female obs/gyn staff.

I work with very senior OBGYNs and the only one who’s ever shown a similar attitude to Adam Kay was a woman who was rolling her eyes about laminated birth plans and NCT. One of the male OBGYNs I recently appointed to a leadership role impressed me by saying at the end of his interview that his personal mission, his life’s work, was to improve care for mothers and babies. I don’t think it’s as a clear cut as all that.

Malibu
I don't think it was an emergency situation when Adam let Shruti deliver the baby. It was an elective Caesarean. He asked her if she'd done one before and she said no one had given her the chance. There has to be a first time. She was a qualified medic. If Adam had stayed at the party, she would have had to do all sorts.

There's an earlier post from someone who was left in charge of A&E for nights on end because there was no one senior available. She was only a 2nd year junior. She left the profession because of it. The focus of that scene was the disgusting racism of the patient and her family.

I haven’t had much contact with lakes during births - just Dr after or anaesthetist

They were fine - professional, calm and quick

I did hear some worse stuff close by from female midwife not assessing a patient which shocked me

My female midwives were good though, from last two births esp

I found the ' aftercare ' for my two worse than my care on the ward, but then your kicked out the next day and left to it most of the time ( 30 years ago now , to be fair !)
My sils had their ones in the 70s and early 80s and stayed in hospital for 7 days , so could establish breast feeding etc . Almost unheard of now (unless it's a c section etc. )
I dread to think what it is like these days.

Episode 7 was a bit triggering for me, my son had shoulder dystocia and whilst we knew it was a serious situation I was in tears watching episode 7 thinking about what could have happened. But when the emergency button was hit, I had my midwife, 2 male midwives, 2 health care assistants and the consultant in the room and couldn't fault any of them.

I had bad SPD so the thought of him snipping her pelvis in two made me feel quite ill. It was very tense! Glad your little ones is ok @Dontlickthetrolley

Adam Kay says ...he wasn't out at the time he was writing about.

Google says the book was published 7 Sept 2017.

Here is Kay mentioning his boyfriend in October 2017.

In 2013 interview he mentions coming out to his mother age 19 (approx yr 2000). I wonder who was left to come out to in 2004-2010...

So anyway ,I now conclude that radical fems (at least those of MN) are conspiracy theorists. Because they obsess over information until they find inconvenient until they can reinterpret the info in a way that confirms their firmly held prejudices. It's probably an inconvenience to call Kay a misogynist when he is also gay & ethnic minority. Doesn't fit with the white male hetero patriarchy story.

What matters to these cultists idealogues is narrative (a story they tell themselves)... in feminism, in conspiracy theory worlds, too.

So the C-Theorist trick is... to keep worrying away at one of these aspects to try to reinterpret it to mean something else. Kay was "hiding" his sexuality of the book is proof that he was also "hiding" his underlying misogyny.

Coz it can't be that many readers just made lots of assumptions about something completely unimportant ... and him being gay is unimportant, unless you've got a much-beloved conspiracy theory lens to look at world thru.

The80s

Couldn't agree more. Poor new mums expected to look after their babies from the minute they're born. No time to sleep and recover from the birth. Sent home even before their milk has come in to muddle through on their own. In the rush to be baby-friendly (and save money?) they've forgotten about the mothers

Teenage

How do you know what male obgyn docs and nurses are like if you've never had one? I've had 2 major surgeries in the last 7 years, Gynae and colo-rectal, both obviously involving intimate areas and can honestly say the sex of the doctor no longer registers with me. I get on better with some more than others, but that's life. They're just people after all - like patients.

Thanks @SilverGlassHare he's coming up 10 and it shocked me how quickly I teared up, like it happened yesterday. I may have also critiqued their methods as I had one midwife pushing on my stomach whilst the other had his hands around my sons neck pulling. But it all ended well.

Apparently kays husband used to be head over development at BBC studios!

@Teenagetrouble

Made me thing we should all insist on female obs/gyn staff.

We absolutely shouldn’t - my first birth, the most dismissive doctor I had was female. The male doctor who took over was considerably more professional and didn’t treat me like an idiot.

Re the lyrics of Northern Birds. It is a parody

But why is it only ok to parody and have ‘dark humour’ when it comes to women? I by does not one ever excuse racism or ableism as ‘oh it’s just a joke’? Why do women have to put up with being hated and then being made out to be humourless when they don’t laugh along at themselves?

I also agree when people say that medics shouldn’t, as a class, be hailed as heroes - whilst I’m sure some are, so many are absolutely incompetent, and the excuse of being overworked doesn’t cut it when they’re being rude or unkind or ignoring consent. We stopped letting police officers - who are higher risk in terms of being assaulted and killed than medics - use that excuse a long time ago. I think what’s made it worse is the stupid NHS clap and the martyrisation during COVID which has meant speaking about HCPs in anything other than glowing terms gets a good firm ‘STFU’

I'm not saying that some doctors who work in obs and Gynae aren't misogynists. I am saying that you can't prove they are, based on seeing them with female patients only. They might just be twats.

So the only way to ever prove misogyny is to see if men are treated as bad? And if it’s not comparable then it can’t be misogyny? Yeah that’s not how it works. No one ever said “You can’t prove slavery was racist because you don’t know if they’d have treated white people like that”.

I don't think that's very fair buttercup.

I don't think that lots of HCP are incompetent at all. In fact, my experience has been the exact opposite.

I do think that lots of medics and nurses are forced to work outside of their scope of competence though. Like SHOs forced to cover a whole department alone with no Registrar on duty due to staff shortages. Or nurses who are 6 months qualified forced to be in charge of an entire ward because the experienced nurses have resigned.

I don't want to spoil the series for those who haven't watched it yet, but...

That is exactly what happens to Shruti when she is the only medic on duty for a night shift. She is on the verge of starting an emergency operation for a woman with a ruptured fallopian tube, a procedure that she has never even seen done, never mind performed before.

Shruti also calls a miscarried baby a bunch of cells to the parents. She says this because she is exhausted, hungry, stressed, unsupported, depressed, not thinking straight.

The whole point of the series is to show how the stress, strain, exhaustion and lack of resources impacts upon the HCPs, and how this in turn impacts upon the patients.

We absolutely shouldn't be lauding all HCPs as heroes. But I think it really needs to be recognised that the state of the NHS directly affects the staff which directly affects the patients. A well resourced NHS which looks after it's staff will translate into well looked after patients.

First 2 episodes were sexist and a bit nasty. Maybe they did a bit of viewer feedback and toned it down for the rest. I found it watchable but nothing special.

Such a shame that the NHS is in such a state . Does anyone know first hand if other European hospitals are any better? Working conditions for medics more humane? Which country has a good health system where doctors can cope and patients clients receive great care on the whole??

@AlandAnna

I cried and cried at the end of the book. It’s an honest account of someone who quit a job he would have genuinely thrived in if he had had more support. He’s a loss to the medical profession- that doesn’t mean you have to like him. He’s searingly honest with his words.

I don’t think someone who dismisses women’s concerns, Throws out birth plans and disfigures women is a loss to the medical profession but that’s just me