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  • This Is Going to Hurt

  • Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor
  • By: Adam Kay
  • Narrated by: Adam Kay
  • Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
  • 4.8 out of 5 stars (27,565 ratings)

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This Is Going to Hurt cover art

This Is Going to Hurt

By: Adam Kay
Narrated by: Adam Kay
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Summary

Winner of a record three National Book Awards: Non-Fiction Book of the Year, New Writer of the Year and Zoe Ball Book Club Book of the Year.

The million-copy best seller.

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 best seller and Humour Book of the Year.

This edition includes extra diary entries and a new afterword by the author.

©2017 Adam Kay (P)2017 Macmillan Digital Audio

Critic reviews

"Painfully funny. The pain and the funniness somehow add up to something entirely good, entirely noble and entirely loveable." (Stephen Fry)

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What listeners say about This Is Going to Hurt

Average customer ratings
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  • 5 out of 5 stars
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  • Overall
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Life is for enjoying not enduring.

If you could sum up This Is Going to Hurt in three words, what would they be?

Doctors need support.

What did you like best about this story?

The amount I learned.

What does Adam Kay bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?

Feeling.

Did you have an emotional reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Made me feel deeply for all those people who give their all for so little monetary return having to rely on their inner mental and emotional strength.

Any additional comments?

A must read that enables you help those who are helping you.

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67 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

very insightful, very funny and at times sad

Really enjoyed this book. Very honest account of life as a junior doctor and following reading it I can still say I wouldn't do your job for any amount of money

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Funny

Funny, moving, touching. Although one gets the feeling some stories are apocryphal and not wholly experienced by the author.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

eye watering

loved it from start to finish. in turn hilarious, baffling, emotional, frustrating (on behalf of the author and medical staff) and also heartbreaking. I've always wondered until now, why there are a few thank you cards pinned up in clinics and GP surgeries, often though 'who are these people thanking a Dr for doing their job?' Now I will be one of those people.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

all the emotions

This is an incredible book. a behind closed doors look into the life of the NHS and a Junior doctor. wickedly funny, heartbreakingly sad.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Pulls no punches, brutal but hilarious

This is one of the best books I’ve read, or to be correct, listened too. Sorry, it’s my first audio book!

That aside, Kay’s comedic narrative is a humbling and truely insightful account of life as an NHS Junior Doctor. He reads diary entries from the 6years or so on thr front line. Some of this book is side splittingly funny, mad, daft and comedy gold. Some is incredibly sad, poignant and incredulous.

It’s an honest, open and pull no punches book that is brutal and scathing towards the reality of working hours, the constant pressures and emotional / psychological impact it has.

Please read this. Please also bear in mind the Afterword offering time and support to NHS workers you come into contact with. Let them know you care, listen, don’t be a dick, be kind etc. Kay says the impact of you in hospital will likely be more for them than you. You’ll understand more when you read or listen to this book.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Brilliant listen, incredibly sharp and insightful!

Such a good listen, I've laughed out loud while walking on the street but I've also felt sad at times. An incredibly charismatic author and narrator, that sheds a completely different light on the struggle of the NHS and its doctors face, while narrated in a funny way. A must listen.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

a wide opening of eyes and thought provoking

I have have I previously heard some of Adam's performances and found them very funny and I have a deeper appreciation of people who read their own books especially as I am dyslexic but as I've heard a lot more books and I possibly could read this book has left me floored and more appreciation for the Poor stressed godlike doctors this book is so fantastic read it

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review

loved every second of this book. absolutely hilarious and moving at the same time

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brilliant, eye opening and highly amusing

brilliant, eye opening and highly amusing. whilst being funny I am re-educated as to the trials and tribulations of the people working in the NHS

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