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Find your new favourite book or recommend one on our Book forum.

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Original poster

This is Going to Hurt by Adam Kay

17 replies

TheOnceAndFutureQueen · 10/10/2018 23:43

Has anyone read this? It's extracts from his diaries during his time as a junior doctor and a real eye-opener. Both amazingly funny and incredibly sad at points, I thought it was fantastic (and should be compulsory reading for the Health Secretary!)

OP posts:

buckingfrolicks · 10/10/2018 23:59

Yes I read that recently! Best summed up as

Xmasbaby11 · 11/10/2018 00:03

Yeah I loved it. Well written and funny butalso shocking and sad.

scattercushion17 · 11/10/2018 00:06

I've just finished it. I'm not in healthcare but it's opened my eyes to what's it like to wotk in the NHS- I admit to being naive before. The humour was a much needed tonic to the worrying side of things.

PassMeTheHaribosAmego · 11/10/2018 16:15

Pleased to hear its good , I'm just about to read it

KeithLeMonde · 13/10/2018 15:14

I really didn't like it! There's another thread further down about the book and its author which is quite an eye opener.

CakeBeTheFoodOfLove · 13/10/2018 18:36

I found it an interesting read but I really disliked the author and the way he wrote about some of the situations.

CakeBeTheFoodOfLove · 13/10/2018 18:38

Quite disrespectful towards some of his 'patients' and a lot of distasteful jokes.

Cakemonger · 14/10/2018 07:39

CakeBe - I agree, I also found it disrespectful and in bad taste. The book was so popular I wondered if it was just me being oversensitive

pannikin · 14/10/2018 07:41

Completely agree with the PPs who didn’t like it and found it in bad taste - it had a particularly unpleasant tone of misogyny running throughout IME, although as it was so popular I did wonder if it was me being oversensitive.

CakeBeTheFoodOfLove · 14/10/2018 13:18

I knew he wasn't going to be my kind of person when he made the comparison of a student doctors accomodation to that of Anne Frank's, with his apparently being the worse of the two. (Or something along those lines). That was only in the first few pages. As I said, very distasteful.......

Urbanbeetler · 14/10/2018 13:21

Some of his parodies in song are a bit knuckle clenchingly close to the edge. Others are hilarious. I think he is clever but I don’t feel fully comfortable with some of the content of the book. He certainly was a grafter and is probably a great loss to obstetrics.

Babdoc · 14/10/2018 13:29

As a retired doctor, who was a hospital junior in the early 1980’s, I well remember the attitudes Kay displays in his book.
We were young, out of our depth, and totally unsupervised by seniors in a way that would horrify modern sensibilities.
It was a “see one, do one, teach one” macho culture, you were working 72 to 120 hours a week, chronically sleep deprived, stressed and exhausted, with responsibility for up to 100 patients a night.
Don’t criticise us for the disrespectful dark humour that was almost our only coping mechanism - we were unfailingly courteous and professional to our patients, but our safety valve was the foul mouthed release of anti patient jokes to each other in the doctors’ mess. Well, that and alcohol. And affairs with colleagues. It was a toxic and gruelling survival of the fittest. Many of us had mental health problems, some committed suicide. Kay simply tells it like it was.

Itchyknees · 14/10/2018 13:32

His voice, even if you don’t like it, is an authentic one. Agree with Babdoc.

CakeBeTheFoodOfLove · 14/10/2018 14:35

Babdoc I don't dispute any of that nor do I critise the need to use dark humour to get through the job. But seeing as I haven't lived through that particular career choice I didn't find the dark humour funny, I found it distasteful. Maybe I am being overly sensitive. But I certainly don't believe the life of a student doctor was comparable to Anne Frank's, and I don't think it was a funny comparison either.

Don't get me wrong, I did laugh at some bits and I found many of the stories incredibly sad, I just didn't like the author, his writing style or the majority of his jokes.

CakeBeTheFoodOfLove · 14/10/2018 14:38

And I also agree that he is probably a great loss for obstetrics, which is a shame. I just didn't like his book.

CakeBeTheFoodOfLove · 14/10/2018 14:40

Sorry, accomodation of Anne Frank, not life of Anne Frank, he didn't compare his life to hers!

Brownboots · 14/10/2018 14:52

His humour is no doubt dark. Even his Christmas show had a song about anorexics at Christmas called 'feed the girls'. But loads of comedians use dark humour, Jimmy Carr and Frankie Boyle have me watching through my fingers sometimes. Doesn't mean that a lot of people don't find it funny even if they cringe at the same time, and doesn't mean that people can't enjoy his book. I don't think you have to agree with the comedy he uses in his songs to read and appreciate the book.

If you see him do his show about the book, you'll see a different side to him. He's warm, engaging and genuinely passionate and an advocate for junior doctors especially

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