Adam Kay's This is Going to Hurt

[musicalfrog]

I haven't even finished the book yet but I'm getting more and more annoyed with him the further in I go. I didn't mind him initially but then the more he progresses in his career the more insufferable he gets!

Is he really such an arrogant *** or is he just writing for laughs? Whichever, I'm glad he's not a practicing doctor now, but unfortunately I recognise his attitude in a couple of doctors I had the misfortune to encounter during my first birth experience.

Just wondering if anyone else had the same reaction as me? I've not seen him on TV or anything, the book is all I have to go on.

Oh, and Mumsnet gets a mention a few chapters in!

I thought it was really funny in places. I enjoyed it.

I don’t think it’s saying that he didn’t care about his patients, but that he came across as thinking thought he knew best to the point of being dismissive, particularly of women’s health.

Plus, being a dr doesn't automatically make you a good one, or indeed, a good person.

As I mentioned earlier, many arrogant young registrars (and I include myself) have a medical disaster or near miss early in their career.
Most of us find our humility and become better doctors thereafter. We realise we are not God, that we cannot cure everything, and that mistakes happen.
Kay does not seem to be able to make that adjustment. He left medicine instead. I think that speaks volumes.

However bad you expect the lyrics to his songs to be, they're much worse. The way he refers to women is shocking, and even if it's for laughs, that doesn't come from nowhere.
www.ouvirmusica.com.br/amateur-transplants/1490089/

They keep getting worse - Menstrual Rag and Northern Birds are horrible, but Nothing At All is even worse.
And his song about a child with Down's Syndrome is just off the charts unspeakably horrible.

Yup. Misogynist who would never consider himself to be one. A nasty man.

I thought his book was pretty misogynistic, he spoke about women like they were just vessels. Did not sit well with me

[quote MsOgyny]@daisyjgrey excellent point. If medics find it lighthearted compared to what THEY would be doing, saying, thinking, and all of us mere non-medics find Adam Kay appalling, I honestly dread to think what the medics I've come across when I've been vulnerable are laughing at about me and my situation. And what they're telling their medic friends and laughing about together. Sobering.

I often feel doctors need more training in compassion, but I kind of assumed that AK was up there with the worst. Seems not.[/quote]
Ex nurse here, I worked in a gynae ward and have posted on MN before how I eventually left because I was fed up of the misogyny and objectification of female patients, and when you're a lone wolf it's a losing battle.

I can assure you that, despite the sexism, I've never heard anyone laughing about a patient with a colleague - unless it was a funny "they told this great joke" kind of thing. It would not have been appropriate and this is one of the reasons I hated Kay's book

Then one page later blaming a woman for a failure to progress because she dared to have a birth plan

God yes I HATED the whole "silly women you can't plan a birth" nonsense.

Birth plans are important. And women aren't stupid; they know things can go wrong. But a birth plan, if nothing else, gives a woman the very important assurance that's she's in control and she's fully aware of what she wants for herself. I hate the concept of throwing birth plans out the window and just getting women to do as they're told in a painful and vulnerable state.

I cared for many women whose birth plans didn't go to plan and had birth injuries, some of which needed care weeks and months later. They would almost exclusively blame themselves. It broke my heart. But a big part of a HCP's job is to reassure their patient - and I always stressed they did nothing wrong at all, having a birth plan is the right thing to do and it not going they way they hoped is not a failure, but bad luck

@FrangipaniDeLaSqueegeeMop it makes me wonder if doctors even know that as a rule women are advised to write a birth plan. Seems to be a massive communicative disconnect here.

Also part of a birth plan is ‘if this happens, then I would prefer this.’ not some naive utopian wish list. If things were utopian in that sense, we would need birth plans less anyway. Remembering reading that book, not long after I’d had my second child, brings back those feelings of being patronised and demeaned by doctors when I was at my most vulnerable. It made me sad then but angry now.

Oh yes the birth plan bit was horrible.
Birth plans are generally a way for a woman to become more informed about labour and birth and therefore more likely to be able to give informed consent and make decisions about their own care (perhaps exactly why doctors like Kay are so quick to deride birth plans as a concept)
Whether or not he really did come across women with literal ‘nine-page laminated’ birth plans I don’t know, but I often see midwives saying that often women who make the most detailed plans have a history of trauma and wanting a lengthly birth plan is just all part of wanting to feel in control and have their boundaries respected. I wonder whether Kay was aware statistically the percentage of his patients who will have had a history of trauma involving males, and just how incredibly important it was for him as a doctor in gynae to be as respectful and sensitive as possible.

What also struck me about the birth plan extract was that having preferences and choices actually benefitted the woman in the end, even though her initial desire for a natural birth had to be abandoned they agreed to do the c-section in a certain way with her own needs and preferences taken into account (what would probably now be the ‘woman-centred’ caesarean that are commonplace in a lot of hospitals) which of course he sneers at.

I liked it a lot. I didn't have to agree with all his opinions to enjoy it.
I detected no misogyny.
My sense of humour is quite dark tbf.

if my pelvic floor ends up saggy I won't mind someone describing it truthfully as such

As a midwife I found the book unpleasant. On the surface it’s an entertaining read but with a distinctly nasty undercurrent.

My BiL thoughtfully gave this to me last week ... I'm end of second trimester.

What a thoughtful present at this time.

(Interesting juxtaposition alongside my hypnobirthing book).

Yes I hated it. I have no problem with dark/gallows humour but he seemed to take a particular glee in belittling women particularly those he viewed as uneducated/lower value (the sex worker previously mentioned and a women who had come in for a 'stupid' reason but I can't remember what). I also hated the comments around a birth plan 'making women think they have any power in the delivery room'. I think that was pretty much as worded.

However it did help to validate my birth experiences. I just knew that the doctors were sneery and arrogant but you start doubting yourself after the event. His admission that he undertook loads of unnecessary sections is frightening. Leaving the profession was the best thing he did for birthing women.

@ThePawtriarchy

Also part of a birth plan is ‘if this happens, then I would prefer this.’ not some naive utopian wish list. If things were utopian in that sense, we would need birth plans less anyway. Remembering reading that book, not long after I’d had my second child, brings back those feelings of being patronised and demeaned by doctors when I was at my most vulnerable. It made me sad then but angry now.

Absolutely.

I worked in my (relatively short) time as a nurse in A&E then the gynae ward. There was a marked difference in the way men were spoken to by HCP's than women. I was labelled 'difficult' when I worked in the gynae ward because I was forever raising issues what I perceived as misogyny on the ward. Kay's book was eerily familiar..:it's just the general attitude that women are

1. Wrong about everything
2. To blame for everything
3. Don't have the foggiest about their own bodies

It wasn't just HCP's - male visitors were pandered to and treated like Gods and simpered over simply for visiting their sick wives, who in turn were treated like children.

I had a complaint made against me once as one bloke, when told his wife (who he had 3 kids with) would have to have emergency surgery and stay at least a couple of nights, the first thing he said was "And what am I supposed to do with the kids?". I said "You could look after them?". He complained that I was unsympathetic to HIM (ha!) and the matron tried to get me to write an apology.I said I'll resign before I apologise, why are we propping up these damaging and sexist attitudes. He probably expected me to take them home with me.

@FrangipaniDeLaSqueegeeMop I can imagine how stressful working in that environment would have been.

I walked past my CS surgeon in a shop a few weeks after delivery and recognised him immediately but he looked right through me. I understand why doctors might not recognise their patients when they’ve had thousands of them, but I will remember the impact of a traumatic experience for the rest of my life.

@Wearywithteens

“I liked it a lot. I didn't have to agree with all his opinions to enjoy it. I detected no misogyny. My sense of humour is quite dark tbf. if my pelvic floor ends up saggy I won't mind someone describing it truthfully as such”

Yes I agree. I have no tolerance for misogyny and I take on board all the comments here (most of our book club agreed) - but I felt that I would’ve been happy for him to treat me - in whatever condition. I don’t need him to have the right ‘outlook’, just to be human, real and competent. The book suggested he was. I also think birth plans are a load of patronising, gaslighting wank to divert women's attention from the fact that the NHS is still duping them into having the most painful childbirth option because it’s cheap, and hey, it’s only women...

I was a fan.

This. I’m a (female) gynaecologist, and ex-obstetrician.

@quince2figs I’m absolutely coming from a genuine place of interest and trying to understand, but do you think there’s a reason those of us who have perceived the book in this way (feeling he was dismissive of and derogatory towards women at times) have done so, if it’s truly not the case.

I wonder if I’d have felt the way I did if I’d read it when I was younger / pre children with less of my own maternal experiences and awareness of how older / elderly women are treated, for example.

Also @quince2figs are you saying you agree with all of the quote? This included?

I also think birth plans are a load of patronising, gaslighting wank to divert women's attention from the fact that the NHS is still duping them into having the most painful childbirth option because it’s cheap, and hey, it’s only women...

*Kay's book was eerily familiar..:it's just the general attitude that women are

1. Wrong about everything
2. To blame for everything
3. Don't have the foggiest about their own bodies*

This sums up his attitudes perfectly. Astonished others can read the same text and not detect misogyny.

I suppose it’s just a symptom of how normalised and ingrained sexism is in our society that his book is a lauded bestseller.