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This Is Going to Hurt
- Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor
- Narrated by: Adam Kay
- Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
- Categories: Biographies & Memoirs, Professionals & Academics
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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.
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What listeners say about This Is Going to Hurt
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- The_Animagus
- 23-09-17
Well written, Well told
Birth, death, and all the dirty stuff in between, Adam has written a fascinating account of being a Junior Doctor and beyond. In addition he tells his tales with the smoothness of a stage performer.
What's more, I'm a vet, and it's nice to know other medical professions get the same problems as we have. But nationalised, and with the health of the country on their shoulders.
Gods bless this NHS
104 people found this helpful
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- rachch
- 20-09-17
Heartbreaking and hilarious!
I hardly ever write reviews but this is such a great audiobook I had to! I've seen Adam perform his music live several times and love his dry sense of humour but this book is on another level - but gave me more to think about afterwards than I expected. Excellent as an audiobook read by him.
40 people found this helpful
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- Dumsey
- 12-09-17
Brilliant!
The best book I have ever had the pleasure of listening to. Adam Kay made me both howl with laughter and cry with sorrow. His writing is eloquent and his reading of the book is brilliant. I highly recommend it to everyone, Fellow NHS staff will empathise with him and his struggles. Non NHS staff should listen to it for an insight into a truly unique world.
63 people found this helpful
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- William
- 11-09-17
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.
58 people found this helpful
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- P Mac
- 09-11-17
A must listen
A compelling book. Interesting, eye opening, funny, sad, awe inspiring and well presented in audiobook by the author. A must listen in my humble opinion.
20 people found this helpful
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- John
- 26-11-17
Shocking, emotional, funny insight
I was expecting the job to be hard, but nothing like this. I hope this book can help change many perspectives on what a life of a doctor really is.
Great book, would definitely buy a part two even if it was the more mundane.
19 people found this helpful
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- M
- 21-12-17
Echoes what is happening in education too
Thanks for sharing this funny but heartbreaking tale of the issues leading up to the brain drain from the NHS and it’s ultimate privatisation. Wish you all the best in your new career but wish you’d been able to use your talents as a doctor as your empathy and emotional intelligence shine through the book.
23 people found this helpful
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- Dr Marianne Ross
- 04-11-17
Loved it
Should make all friends and family of medics listen to it. Cathartic, made me want to cry at times
15 people found this helpful
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- Dave
- 29-11-17
A wonderful raconteur.
Probably not a good read if you are in the midst of pregnancy. But overall great anecdotes, not too ranty when it comes to the challenges of the NHS, incredibly funny in places and make you remember there’s nought so queer as folk.
20 people found this helpful
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- Adam Bharmal
- 21-10-17
Amazing
Hilarious and crushingly poignant. Well worth a listen by medical students, doctors and everyone else
13 people found this helpful
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- siri
- 29-08-19
Fun and honest about beeing a doctor
Beeing a medical doctor myself, I was exited about listening to this book. I found myself laughing and crying through the chapters. All the fun stories, the colourful personalities you meet in the hospital (both patients and staff), the fear of mistreating patients and all the extremely long and hard hours of work. It was so recognizable!
I live in Norway and I guess we have both better salary and work hours here, but doctors still work more than any other employee I can think of.
I started my internship married to a resident surgeon. My firstborn was only 1,5 years old at the time. I remember how I sometimes had to leave her with the nurses in the emergency departement because daycare closed and the shift of my husbond ended one hour after mine starded. I was so tired that I sometimes puked in the shower after beeing on dutey. I still feel that it is difficult resting on vacation; I feel that I have somehow lost the touch on how to relax. Still I love my job. It is the most interesting, rewarding and fullfilling job ever! :)
1 person found this helpful
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- Giveaman Amask
- 17-06-18
Important and Funny
Mostly it's a lot of funny stories about being a doctor (in the UK), but underneath the funny stuff are some important, deeper stories.
Medicine may be the most admired career, and yet Adam Kay walked away from it. Why?
That's what this book is about. It's about him coming to terms with giving up something he put so much into, and really took over his life, or perhaps ruined his life. It's a cautionary tale, too, about bad government policies that take a situation where physicians will do heroic work for pennies, and wrecking this valuable part of British society.
I really loved this book. It made me want to have the author as a friend.
1 person found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 11-02-21
Great insight on the hardships of NHS
Great insight on the hardships of NHS. Narrated by the author, which could be a little better.
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- E. D. Saxon
- 30-12-20
You'll laugh & you'll cry. Brilliant eye-opener.
I listened to this on my hour release of exercise from lockdown. I laughed a lot at Kay's stories, but shared his frustrations and sadness along the way too. This gave me an insight into the inner workings of the NHS for staff and what we expect from them as patients. It's not good enough to rely on clever people to study medicine for the love of it; we have to support them in their work and to sustain the entire system for public benefit. hlHighly recommended.
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- Anonymous User
- 23-08-20
Narration is terrible
This book is likely a great read, but I found it impossible to listen to because of the narration style. Returned it.
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- Jonas Bech
- 04-07-20
"Painfully Funny"
When Stephen Fry described this books as "painfully Funny", he hit the nail on the head.
This book is just as likely to make you laugh out loud as it is to make you cry, when you start a new chapter.
Absolutely loved it.
(And as a side note: as someone who wants to start a career in medicin, this book made me feel more sure about my choice.)
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- Anonymous User
- 24-02-20
Wow
Hilarious and realistic account of the challenges Doctors face. Quite shocking working conditions and a lack of care towards people in a profession who are expected to provide ultimate care. It also begs the question, what don’t people put up themselves?
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- Michael
- 18-12-19
Anecdotes without an antidote.
Boring stories read by a boring reader, a series of little experiences and observations without much humour. It was billed as a funny book which lacks the vital ingredient, humour.
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- Christopher
- 30-11-19
Fascinating and hilarious.
Great book and very well narrated. Really funny, interesting and well observed. Very much worth the read.
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- Gabrielle
- 23-10-19
Life changing
I learned so much from this book. I laughed and cried and thought of people I knew. I wish I had listened to this book before spending a few years wondering how much I would need to sacrifice to become a doctor (I decided it would be too high a price for my kids). Thank you for the insights, Adam. Beautiful performance too!