This is Going to Hurt: The Bestselling Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor

Genuinely compelling read, as a woman that has given birth 5 times it's fascinating, heartbreaking, funny and makes me even more proud of the NHS and awe-struck by the staff.

This book has just taken the spot of my favourite book to have ever read. I listened to the audiobook but ended up buying the kindle version as well to be able to screenshot the best moments to share and encourage friends and family to read it. I have never been inclined to do that before. This book took me between the most extreme points of the emotion scale. So many laugh out loud, literally giggling alone in my room, hilarious moments. Still more that were immediately followed by slight guilt that I was laughing so hard about something ultimately pretty horrifying. It is hard to believe that this is not fiction but the experiences of a junior doctor in our NHS. But vital to keep remembering it and incredibly sobering to realise, and takes you from laughing to grimacing or even tears on occasion. I would highly recommend listening to this book as an audiobook. It felt like a privilege to be listening to Adam Kay revealing his own memories in his own voice with his own inflections and tone and, at the end particularly but no spoilers here, emotion. The voice is able to portray emotion and help you visualise the scene better than words on the paper alone ever can when it’s the very person who wrote the words reading them out to you. I think it should be imperative for everyone to read this book. To truly appreciate what doctors go through and to further appreciate the NHS. It feels very timely to be writing this review the day after the election that re-elected Boris Johnson and the Conservative party. I hope that this book continues to raise awareness of and gratitude for the NHS and all who work in it and that all efforts will be made to sustain it and support it further.

I could not put this down! A brilliant read with lighthearted humor. Pulled on my heartstrings and has made me want to hug every NHS worker!

I was expecting great things with this book. I bought it a few years ago, when everyone seemed to be reading it. Then I made the mistake of reading his other short, Christmas edition book first-that wasn't so good for me, but I had heard so many good reports about this one, I went back and read it-and am so glad I did. It's written in diary format, which I love. At first, I wasn’t sure it was completely my thing. It's written in a jokey way; not getting the high emotion of life and death situations. (Although there is some of that later). Light, short diary entries, easy to read, and hard to put down. The author spent six years qualifying, then another six years on the wards, going through the various departments and grades. He decided to specialise in obstetrics and gynaecology, also getting the opportunity to work in infertility clinics. It was very amusing, I soon got into the style of it. I liked his humour-l laughed out loud (just a couple of cringey bits, hence the 4 stars). Yes, this is funny-but quite different to other medical/ doctor/ nurse/ vet memoirs that I've read. It's not the heavy, emotional read- it's a lighter look through his short and snappy diary entries. These types of jokes, and quite a bit of bad language I might not normally like in a completely serious memoir, but this one, if I imagined eg. Sarah Millican on the stage narrating it: Hilarious. More of a stand-up take on a doc's adventures. It's not repetitive. There are plenty; in fact tons of different medical scenarios-and hilariously funny. Lots of footnotes too-and I absolutely read them all, because, as well as info, these were often so funny too. And because I've said it's funny, don't think it's all silly stuff-so much happens in this. What a great read!

A good insight into how these drs cope,funny and sad,well written even the gory stuff! I take my hat off to you all.

“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.” Written in short diary excerpts, this laugh-out-loud collection follows Adam Kay as he ascends through the ranks from junior doctor to consultant of gynaecology, which he so pleasantly refers to as “brats and twats”. This eye-opening read provides insight into what it is really like to work for the NHS – warts and all (literally). “I notice that every patient on the ward has a pulse of 60 recorded in their observation chart so I surreptitiously inspect the healthcare assistant’s measurement technique. He feels the patient’s pulse, looks at his watch and meticulously counts the number of seconds per minute.” Some of his diary entries are only a few sentences long whereas others are several pages, making this book an easy read in one-sitting or one to pick up and put down at leisure. Kay comments on the insufferably long days and the horrors of an understaffed rota with wit and humour, and discloses the everyday routines of those on the frontlines of our hospitals. He’s such a likeable narrator, and you love him, and our NHS, even more for sharing the highest highs and the lowest lows that come with the job. Miscarriages, family deaths and the all-too-vivid descriptions of intrusive surgeries litter these pages, all told through anecdotes of love, hope and downright stupidity. Join Kay on his first day in the wards, right through to his last. “I’m as big a fan of recycling as the next man, but if you turn a used condom inside out and put it back on for round two, it’s probably not going to be that effective.” Our NHS needs us now more than ever and if you are in any doubt of this claim, pick up this book. Laugh with him, cry with him and learn about what really goes on behind closed doors. Adam Kay has just published his second book, a Christmas sequel ‘Twas the Nightshift Before Christmas. This is another excellently executed and highly recommended read.

Anyone who uses the NHS marvels at the incredible work of the nurses and doctors who look after us, but what is it really like from the point of view of a junior doctor. Along comes Adam Kay with his laugh out loud This is Going to Hurt (Picador) that was released in early September. In recent weeks Adam has won the Books Are My Bag Non-Fiction Book of the Year, the Books Are My Bag Readers' Choice Award and also Winner of Blackwell's Debut Book of the Year. Not a bad return for a debut about a junior doctor. Actually it is just brilliant in every respect. There were times when I was reading this that I was laughing so much I had tears in my eyes not sure what my fellow passengers must have thought on my daily commute to and from work. But at the same time I had tears for very different reasons. Just the pure emotion and also heartbreaking. These are the diaries of Adam Kay when he was a junior doctor for six years. I said to one of my bookish friends on Twitter that I was going to send a copy to Jeremy Hunt (Health Secretary), well I can now reveal here that I actually did just that, whether the book actually reached him personally is another matter. But I carried out my threat as I believe he and other government ministers should read this outstanding and brilliant book. Here are his diary entries from 2004 to 2010 after which he gave up his job suddenly and very sadly. Now he writes and my goodness does he write. Though Kay is extremely funny in his writing there is a very serious side to this book and he uses it to send a message to those in power and how the NHS is on the verge of collapse despite those in government denying this for their own agenda. There is one part that has stayed with me and it is when Adam has just ended yet another very long shift on the wards and is so exhausted that he falls asleep in his car. He has not left the car park at the hospital. He is woken up by the registrar on Christmas Day asking why he is late for his next shift. Then he falls asleep at various points. If this does not get a message across as to just how hard these doctors and nurses are working and to the point of sheer mental and physical exhaustion, then nothing will. These dedicated people are not just human they are super human. They are there to put us back together when things go wrong for whatever reason. I am not one for watching these medical dramas on TV as I have seen them working at first hand on my over recent years and to me each and every one is a hero and should treated as such. If you read one book before the end of this year, please make it This is Going to Hurt I promise you will fall over laughing it will make you cry laughing and it will make you angry at the way the NHS is being managed. It is one of my 15 books of 2017. You will not be disappointed. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Before I purchase a book I always read some of the reviews both good and bad. I'm always very sceptical of books and reviewers that claim a book is 'laugh out loud' funny and probably would have been more swayed by the negative reviews had I not decided to read the first few pages before buying. Im not sure what it was in those pages that attracted me to the book - perhaps the open, honest fast way he wrote? I can't not agree with some of the negative reviews that at times he does use inappropriate language which does at times shock but I would say he never appeared arrogant. I feel the book is written with wit and honesty. The fast pace pulls you through. The comic anecdotes keep you reading but all the while you understand that here is someone who loved his job but was pushed to the very limit and perhaps in those circumstances it is entirely naturally that the way to survive is inappropriate jokes and language. How else can one get through the difficult times. I am of an age where I have spent a good deal of time in various NHS hospitals with parents and in laws. I have seen how stretched the departments are and how the doctors and nurses have to keep pushing through. This book shows the cost to the doctors. As patients and relations of patients we see an efficient doctor looking and sounding efficient totally unaware of how many shifts he has done back to back or how many other patients he is struggling to treat, juggling what equipment, beds and procedures he has available. We all expect the most from our doctors without thinking about the toil on their personal life. I was once lucky (or unlucky enough) to be at a dinner party where I was sat next to the then Health minister and was astounded that he had absolutely no knowledge of medicine, health or any related topic. That before visiting a hospital he received a briefing which he was expected to read on the way there. He may have a team behind him giving him this information but still decisions are made about how best to spend money on the NHS and medical staff pay with little regard for what is happening on the front line. This book was a joy to read although had me in tears at the end and not from the wit. Some of the stories did have me laughing but the overall impression it leaves is a doctor working hard long hours a job he takes great pride in but in difficult conditions at the limits of his knowledge and strength. We should support these doctors more. There must be ways to help them which in the long run would only benefit everyone as more doctors would stay in their jobs.

Always love adam kay book

I laughed out loud and snorted tea out my nose so be careful not to be drinking a hot beverage when you read this book. The author lays bare the absurdities of the hospital system in the UK (which still beats the heck out of private healthcare in the US). The dangerously over-worked junior doctors, the toll on young doctors’ family life and the caring and compassionate healthcare workers who do their best to keep patients safe. I couldn’t wait to get back to the book each day. One of the best books I’ve read.

The blurb and publicity praise the book as an adorably funny satire on the hospital business. Yes, it is funny, it is set in Great Britain, mainly in gynaecology and in the British NHS healthcare system, but it is not (actually) satire. It is an exact description of a doctor's work and, apart from a few deviations (our specialist training does not follow exactly the same pattern), it can be transferred exactly to Germany, to everything that goes wrong, to everything that is a daily burden for all employees in the healthcare system. Even many of the situations that seem very strange or even absurd to outsiders have probably been experienced in the same or a similar way by almost everyone who has worked in a hospital for a few years. I am sure that they happened in exactly the same way and were not invented by the author. In particular - and this is where the book ends - it is an indictment of the complete disregard shown by politicians for the people who work in hospitals or elsewhere on a daily basis. But in the end it doesn't matter. Even our current Minister of Health, Mr Lauterbach, would probably not change anything if he were to devote his precious time to this book at all, and would probably not even feel addressed. In this respect: absolutely worth reading, but also very depressing. Not funny.

Very good wife happy

I loved this book sm. It gave me so much insight into a medical career path. It can be amusing, tiring and rewarding. Book makes u laugh and cry and question some people. GET IT