Young doctor’s memoir candid, funny and not without pain

“This Is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Young Doctor” by Adam Kay (Mariner)

In his memoir “This Is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Young Doctor,” Dr. Adam Kay highlights the pressures of a new doctor’s “junior days” working 97hour weeks in a challenging Ob-Gyn ward in London in England’s National Health Services. He chose Ob-Gyn (or obs and gynae, as the Brits call it) because there are only four things to think about: Cesareans, forceps, vacuum extractions and “sewing up the mess you’ve made.”

Kay’s writing is often hilarious and occasionally filled with pathos. He writes about a woman patient, screaming at a nurse who clearly has not pleased her, “I pay your salary! I pay your salary!” to which the nurse yells back. “Can I have a raise, then?” Kay needs to find a couple of hours every night to study for an exam which will be in four months. He says he must “give up his frivolous hobby of sleeping or cut out his commute by living in a storage closet at work.”

On Christmas Day he and his wife open their gifts at “breakneck speed” so he can get to the hospital and to work before 7 a.m. He says people do not come to the hospital on Christmas unless they “genuinely hate their families.”

He reminds the reader to be happy when they are last in line in a triage at the ER. If you are, it means everyone else there is sicker than you. He decided to try going into private medicine but bailed out after a short time, which, as he says, was a pity because he’d already planned on what color his chauffeur’s uniform would be.

Medical stories are not enjoyed by all, but most readers will find this one rewarding. It is entertaining, even amusing, and you may even learn a thing or two about medicine.