– Author: Adam Kay
A staple memoir for aspiring medics and clinicians of course. Medicine is seen as a profession of precision, very black and white. Adam Kay perfectly illustrates the unmasked, real and very vulnerable side to being a doctor within the NHS.
This Is Going To Hurt is an accumulation of diary entries from Adam Kay’s time as a junior doctor within the NHS. Through wit and humour, Kay exposes the impact of the immense pressures these doctors have to face on the wards.
What surprised me the most throughout this book was the normalisation of exhaustion as a doctor. Endlessly skipping meals, not sleeping, working back to back long shifts; caring so much for other people’s lives, and yet not being able to care for their own. The constant reminder that they had no social life, a struggling love life. They were expected to have their lives revolve around work and only work.
Constantly doctors are described as emotionless – They’re expected to keep up a strong front at all times. However, this book made me realise that emotional resilience isn’t the absence of feeling, but the ability to keep showing up despite it all. As patients we see doctors for minutes at a time. We don’t see the hours they’ve been awake, the meals they’ve missed or the quiet guilt that follows them home. This made me see doctors in a different light which fills me with gratitude.
His dark humour was his coping mechanism – he exeptionally gets the point of ‘it’s funny until it’s not’ across. One minute the reader is laughing until the realisation of what had just happened sinks in. This also reflects that medicine is full of moments that can change tone without warning. There is so much on the line everyday and there will be moments that will change you as a person forever, as we see with Adam and the premature birth as a result of his misjudgement, he was not able to leave that guilt.
Shruti’s (a foundation year doctor) story personally hit me the hardest, because this is not a singular case, this is a mirror of the system as a whole. It’s what happens when compassion burns out in a system that doesn’t know how to care for its own. It shows to me, as a doctor empathy should be universal, not just to patients but just as much to their colleagues. Sometimes one person is enough. Her story didn’t however make me lose faith in medicine, but gave me a reason to always remember my values and what I stand for; empathy, understanding and kindness.
Kay’s decision to leave medicine hit hard as a reader. So much blood, sweat, and tears (even literally) went into his career; for him to leave, we can only imagine how tough that must’ve been. Healthcare workers have a pressure to stay strong even when they’re burnt out, and you really have to imagine if that is an environment that you can endure and still give time to your mental health.
This book is something everyone, not just clinicians should read, it teaches you that before everything else, you need to be okay. That as much as helping others is rewarding, you need to help yourself. It helped me think about the type of clinician I’d want to be and that being smart is not enough, you need to be human.
Have you read this book? If so, how did it make you feel? Do you agree or disagree let me know.
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