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This is Going to Hurt: Now a major BBC comedy-drama Paperback – 3 Feb. 2022
Adam Kay (Author) See search results for this author |
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Now a major new BBC comedy-drama starring BAFTA and Emmy award-winning actor Ben Whishaw
The multi-million copy bestseller now with an exclusive new preface by the author
Welcome to the life of a junior doctor: 97-hour weeks, life and death decisions, a constant tsunami of bodily fluids, and the hospital parking meter earns more than you.
Scribbled in secret after endless days, sleepless nights and missed weekends, Adam Kay's This is Going to Hurt provides a no-holds-barred account of his time on the NHS front line. Hilarious, horrifying and heartbreaking, this diary is everything you wanted to know – and more than a few things you didn't – about life on and off the hospital ward.
Sunday Times Number One Bestseller for over a year and winner of a record FOUR National Book Awards: Book of the Year, Non-Fiction Book of the Year, New Writer of the Year and Zoe Ball Book Club Book of the Year.
- Print length304 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherPicador
- Publication date3 Feb. 2022
- Reading age18 years and up
- Dimensions13 x 1.9 x 19.7 cm
- ISBN-101529062330
- ISBN-13978-1529062335
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Product description
Review
So clinically funny and politically important for supporters of the NHS that it should be given out on prescription ― Guardian
Painfully funny. The pain and the funniness somehow add up to something entirely good, entirely noble and entirely loveable. -- Stephen Fry
Finally a true picture of the harrowing, hilarious and ultimately chaotic life of the junior doctor in all its gory glory, dark comedy and unavoidable sadness. A blisteringly funny account shot through with harrowing detail, many pertinent truths and the humanity we all hope doctors conceal behind their unflappable exteriors -- Jo Brand
As hilarious as it is heartbreaking – and it IS heartbreaking (also hilarious) -- Charlie Brooker
Blisteringly funny, politically enraging and often heartbreaking . . . hilarious . . . brimming not just with humour but with humanity . . . This should be a wake-up call to all who value the NHS -- Hannah Beckerman ― Sunday Express
A funny, excoriatingly revealing, beautiful book -- Dawn French
Horrifyingly hilarious and hilariously horrifying -- Danny Wallace
A ferociously funny book -- Mark Watson
Superb -- Pam Ayres
As a hypochondriac I was worried about reading Adam Kay’s book. Luckily it’s incredibly funny – so funny, in fact, that it gave me a hernia from laughing -- Joe Lycett
By turns witty, gruesome, alarming, and touching. Always illuminating and searingly honest -- Jonathan Dimbleby
Brilliant -- Mark Haddon
About the Author
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Product details
- Publisher : Picador; Main Market edition (3 Feb. 2022)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 304 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1529062330
- ISBN-13 : 978-1529062335
- Reading age : 18 years and up
- Dimensions : 13 x 1.9 x 19.7 cm
- Best Sellers Rank: 440 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- Customer reviews:
About the author

Adam Kay is an award-winning writer and former non-award-winning junior doctor. His first book "This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor" was a Sunday Times number one bestseller for over a year and has sold over 2.5 million copies. It has been translated into 37 languages and is winner of four National Book Awards, including Book of the Year, and will be a major new comedy drama for BBC/AMC starring Ben Whishaw. His second book "Twas the Nightshift Before Christmas" was an instant Sunday Times number one bestseller and sold over 500,000 copies in its first few weeks. His compilation "Dear NHS" raised over £250k for charity. His first children's book "Kay's Anatomy" was published in October 2020.
adamkay.co.uk
@amateuradam
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I have been the impatient Nurse paging an already overstretched junior doctor to come and review a patient, prescribe more pain relief or fluids, check Gent or Vanc levels or write a discharge letter (as the patient is standing in front of me dressed, holding their packed belongings with their angry relative who has come to collect them...because the Consultant told them 7 hours ago on the ward round they could go home after dinner).
I have taken junior doctors a cup of tea, a biscuit and a “patients sandwich” from the ward fridge because it’s 6pm and they haven’t eaten or drank anything since before their shift started 9 hours ago.
I have been there on a ward round when they have been belittled by a Consultant in front of their colleagues and the patient for not ordering a test the day before, or because they didn’t give an answer to a seemingly straightforward question and have been met with raised eyebrows and “did you graduate from medical school Dr?” from said Consultant.
I have also been the nurse on Nightshift when things have been the “Q” word, turning a blind eye as a junior doctor sneaks into the Day unit next door for some shut eye because they are exhausted on their 5th night. Or sitting at the Nurses Station swapping comical stories about patients, because sometimes you need that shared humour to get you through to the end of your shift.
I left the wards for a less stressful stint in Occupational Health after 6 years of working rotational shifts, which I appreciate on the grand scale of things is not that long at all. However, for my own sanity I felt I had no choice. I was burnt out, stressed, irritable, permanently exhausted through crazy shift patterns (3 nights, a sleep day then a day shift, off for two then back in for 3 days?) sick of constantly being short staffed, being left unsupported (especially on nights) and having to make decisions above my pay grade then being chastised for it in the morning by Sister, missing countless social and family gatherings because of “being on shift”, my husband and I were on the road to starting IVF treatment after unsuccessfully trying for a baby for nearly 3 years....the list goes on.
The NHS relies on the goodwill of its staff working past their time, (usually writing up notes or Incident forms that you haven’t had time to do during your shift), or swapping their shift due to staff shortages at the last minute, relies on them building their own support network instead of giving them the right support to deal with traumatic events that are all too common in the job (but no amount of training will ever prepare you for), working through their breaks “because the ward is too busy”....etc, etc
The pressures of the job are increased ten fold by the pressures of management, audits, paperwork (sometimes its like paperwork for the sake of paperwork) which is generated by our unrealistic government. And also not forgetting the negative attention the media places on the situation giving some patients/relatives the idea that your fair game in questioning your abilities and informing you the papers said this or that so it must be true...it’s sad to think that this wonderful system that was once the envy of the world has been brought to its knees, leading valuable and extremely competent staff to leave the profession in their droves.
I completely understand about black humour in times of stress and it is a stressful job but all of what he lists as ‘anecdotes’ were human beings and even if they did some weird things and weren’t too bright - they still didn’t deserve to be the butt if his jokes and used to earn him a penny or two when he gave up doctoring.
I’m not even sure that he liked his patients and I think it’s probably just as well he has left the profession. I finished the book but I wouldn’t recommend it and I’m not sure how it gets all the good reviews - well I am, he no doubt has a very good agent and publicity machine.