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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 (27,464 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)

What listeners say about This Is Going to Hurt

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  • 5 out of 5 stars
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    23,511
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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

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

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116 people found this helpful

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

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.

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72 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

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
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    5 out of 5 stars

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.

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51 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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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.

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27 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

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.

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24 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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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.

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23 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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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.

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20 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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Aptly named

I gave up. I can understand why he gave up medicine. This book might work better in a pub somewhere as a stand-up act. It's trite and offensive in tone and language. I can actually hear the condescending smirk on his face as he recounts tale after self-aggrandizing tale. He seems to value the brand of his underpants and socks more than people.

If you don't mind some cheap belly laughs at the expense of the dignity of his patients or co-workers, along with a good smattering of "f*cks" etc, then by all means give it a go.

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18 people found this helpful

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

Loved it

Should make all friends and family of medics listen to it. Cathartic, made me want to cry at times

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17 people found this helpful