Reviews with content warning for Medical trauma - This Is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor

If you are interested in medical field but don’t want to delve too deep
If you want to see humorous yet poignant reflections on the realities of working within the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK
If you want to understand/know more stories related to obstetrics and gynecology (OB-GYN)

🧠 My thoughts
I learned a lot from this book due to its medical nature and I was not familiar with all of the terms. The book was undoubtedly funny and informative. Through this book, I understood much better the life of a doctor, the struggle, and the unfairness of the system and I respected this profession even more. Personally, I couldn’t ever imagine that I would be able to work in this field because I can’t deal with blood and medical trauma. The descriptions sometimes just shook me to the core. All due respect to all of the doctors and mothers out there in the world.

However, I have to point out that the humor in this book didn’t always work very well. I felt that sometimes the jokes weren’t funny at all, they were not suitable jokes to be made in the situations and I really didn’t understand why the author had to make those quite offensive jokes.

👍 What I like

Knowledge related to medical field
Easy to read
The stories are interesting

👎 What I don't like

Sometimes there were quite some bad jokes
I’d want to see more retrospective thoughts

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sashajames's review

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dark emotional informative sad medium-paced

4.25

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cjfooks's review against another edition

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challenging emotional informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

3.75

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phoevincent's review against another edition

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challenging emotional funny informative inspiring sad fast-paced

4.5

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beckyyreadss's review against another edition

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emotional funny informative fast-paced

4.0

I wanted to read this book because I love Adam Kay’s style of writing and how brutal he can be but how brutal he needs to be. This book was no different, but it was fully enjoyable and heartbreaking at the same time.

This is about Adam’s career in the NHS. He started out a junior doctor where his life was 97-hour work weeks, life and death decisions, a constant tsunami of bodily fluids and the hospital parking meter making more than a junior doctor does. Adam’s diary entries are written in secret after endless days, sleepless nights and missed weekend. This book provides a no-holds-barred account of his time on the NHS front line. It is hilarious and heartbreaking. You ever want to know how a junior doctor must deal with? Read this book.

With this obviously being before COVID and being set in the UK with the NHS, you know what he means when you joke but then he is also discusses some serious issues like if you want to go private and how much it would cost to have a baby if the NHS was privatised. Also, as someone who doesn’t want children, this book just fully reiterated that I never want children with the horrors that Adam talked about. This book gives you funny titbits and sad stories whilst Adam is talking about the things that are going on in his life.

Through the whole book, I just wanted to hug Adam and his patients that he renamed to their initials or for his personal friends and family, Harry Potter Characters. As with the Twas the Nightshift Before Christmas, I wanted it longer.

I cannot wait to read Undoctored next, and it will probably break my heart again.

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elanuruysal's review against another edition

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dark funny informative reflective sad medium-paced

3.75

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necessarybells's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny informative sad fast-paced

5.0

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