Reviews with content warning for Eating disorder - Undoctored: The Story of a Medic Who Ran Out of Patients

When I read This is Going to Hurt, I couldn't imagine reading a book that pulled on my heartstrings more.

Undoctored managed it with ease.

I genuinely laughed, cringed and cried reading this book. In one hand he'll feed you a funny story about his life and in the other he slaps you with the reality that life is sometimes hard, and he seems to have got somewhat of an unfair share.

He speaks with honesty about eating disorders, SA and mental health struggles alongside the institutional issues within the medical industry. It never feels hopeless, yet he doesn't sugar coat and I hope his writing on this topics helps those who need to hear it.

I can't fault this book, and I highly recommend picking it up even if its not what you usually go for.

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chris_davies's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted sad fast-paced

5.0

Utterly hilarious - proper laugh out loud on the train funny. But also very moving at times. Brilliantly written, Kay provides the best footnotes since Pratchett. Read it.

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ilhaanreads's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

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asourceoffiction's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful sad fast-paced

4.0

Undoctored sort of picks up where This is Going to Hurt leaves off. But this is more a memoir than a diary, with connected flashbacks linked between chapters. Most of these are from Kay's time as a med student, and we get a lot of insight into his journey into medicine, as well as the effect leaving it (and writing his first book) had on his life.

As with TIGTH it's really funny, but the raw emotion hits hard. The shit that this man has been through, both as a result of his time as a doctor and long predating it, is insane. It's a very messy memoir of a clearly unfinished story. Kay is searingly honest and it's incredible to read about his journey to this point.

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willoughby's review against another edition

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challenging emotional funny sad medium-paced

4.5

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ludivinev's review against another edition

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dark funny fast-paced

3.75

I didn't love the first half so much, but preferred the second one. It's both deeply personal and very funny (not necessarily both at the same time…). Kay talks about his eating disorder, being sexually assaulted and losing his own baby during his wife pregnancy and still having to work on the labour ward. At first I didn't like the way he talked about his partner but it became obvious that he was exaggerating things for the purpose of humour. This book still has interesting reflections on the life of student doctors and the NHS that make me even more grateful for the service and care I receive as a user of the NHS.

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