Review: This Is Going To Hurt (Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor), by Adam Kay

I think this book should be required reading for anyone who has ever benefited from the NHS, or is a supporter of an NHS, or (God forbid) anyone who thought, during the government's war on the Junior Doctors, that they were being stubborn or greedy (they weren't).

It's not hard to see why the NHS is almost like a religion in this country. Unlike other countries (*cough USA cough*) there is literally no-one in the U.K. who would be afraid to go to the doctors' or the hospital because they couldn't afford to. (They'd be more worried they were just wasting the doctor's time). "From cradle to grave" was Nye Bevan's vision, and even though the NHS is on its knees, that much is generally still true.

But anyway. Back to the book. Adam Kay writes his book as a series of diary entries (some just a few sentences, some running over a couple of pages), from the first week on the wards to his final shift six years later. (No spoilers but... be prepared for the ending).

The entries run from the sublime to the ridiculous to the downright heartbreaking, and none of them are what ever any of us working outside of a hospital or doctor's surgery could call a 'normal' day's work. From retrieving objects from patient's anuses when they got a bit too experimental over Christmas, to having to perform 5 Caesareans in the same amount of hours, it seems that anything goes and you just have to meet it? Break times? For wusses. Food? Nah, you don't need it. Sleep? What, you mean you would like a rest in between the first five deliveries you've performed and the next five you'll have to do? Pfft.

Honestly, I knew life for junior doctors was hard but it's not until you read or hear the personal stories of someone who has done it for such a long time that you really appreciate just how much goodwill the NHS runs on. There are so many more stories from the book that I'd love to share here but I couldn't do them justice and I wouldn't want to deny anyone reading them for the first time.

So, please, if you love the NHS, if you value doctors, if you want to see them being actually treated by the government like the decent human beings they actually are, then please read this. And please do whatever you can to get involved to support them.