Reviews tagging 'Drug use'

This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor by Adam Kay

23 reviews

lazza's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Cancer, Infertility, Child death, Cursing, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Medical content, Medical trauma, and Pregnancy

Minor: Drug use and Dementia

camoo3032's review against another edition

dark emotional funny informative medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Medical content, Terminal illness, Sexual content, Cursing, Death, Excrement, Pregnancy, and Blood

Moderate: Suicide attempt, Child death, Gore, and Grief

Minor: Fatphobia, Fire/Fire injury, Drug use, Sexual assault, Pedophilia, Alcoholism, Abortion, Domestic abuse, Eating disorder, Infertility, Physical abuse, Vomit, Antisemitism, Miscarriage, and Racism

namitree's review against another edition

dark informative reflective medium-paced

Watched the drama series adaptation last year and wanted to read the original material. Very informative on obgyn procedures and complications, the gruelling schedule of NHS junior doctors, and the government's callous campaign against said doctors. However, the unwarranted misogyny and fatphobia (among the MANY other disparaging remarks) was really off-putting and just unnecessarily cruel especially since these women were going through some of the most challenging and painful experiences of their lives.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fatphobia, Blood, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Suicide, Sexual content, and Child death

Moderate: Drug use and Domestic abuse

Minor: Xenophobia and Islamophobia

hellandhogwarts's review against another edition

dark emotional funny informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Medical trauma, Alcohol, Excrement, Cancer, Child death, Miscarriage, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual content, Mental illness, Terminal illness, Addiction, Drug use, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, and Eating disorder

lrl06's review against another edition

dark emotional funny informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

4.5

Going into this as someone from the UK, I am extremely grateful for the NHS and do think that doctors, nurses, midwives, consultants etc. should have many more benefits for their duty than what they unfortunately get. The book illustrates why this should be the case. 

I chuckled many times reading some of the entries and teared up on the last really showing how much of an emotional journey this read is.

Only reason this book isn't 5 stars for me is because I rate books that high when I cannot physically put the book down, with this I did and therefore it's a 4.5 for me. Such an important read that I would recommend to everyone (if not triggered).

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Miscarriage, Medical content, Death, Pregnancy, Child death, Infertility, and Medical trauma

Moderate: Blood

Minor: Drug abuse and Drug use

bookgraham's review against another edition

challenging funny informative reflective fast-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Miscarriage, Child death, Medical trauma, Abortion, Infertility, and Medical content

Minor: Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Gore, Classism, Antisemitism, Excrement, Sexism, Religious bigotry, Racism, Alcohol, Drug use, and Death

bnelson13's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny informative lighthearted reflective relaxing sad medium-paced

5.0

Another book, that if I could give it more than 5 stars I would! Mostly funny, slightly gross, this book is comprised of diary enteries from Dr. Adam Kay's time in Obgyn in various hospitals throughout the UK working for the NHS from 2004-2010. Certain terminology that may be lesser known is described in helpful footnotes throughout the entire book. 

Kay writes how difficult it is working in a system that doesn't quite support doctors, midwives, nurses and other hospital staff, and the impacts on their personal lives that also suffer. Kay has since left the healthcare industry but wrote this novel in solidarity, as an insight into hospital life for the general population after the government started to attack the NHS and saying that doctors are only in it for the money in 2016. 

A very insightful read, if you thought working in a hospital was already difficult, it's actually 10x worse than what you had thought. As it is, now in 2023, and with Covid still running rampant, it's clear that a lot of healthcare systems are crumbling due to lack of staffing, lack of care for staff, and governments out to make as many monetary cutbacks as they possibly can. I think we're on a slippery slope with the healthcare system now, and this book is proof that things need to change. Very eye opening. Well worth the read.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content and Blood

Moderate: Pregnancy, Miscarriage, Abortion, Death, Vomit, Child death, and Infertility

Minor: Cancer, Excrement, Suicidal thoughts, Alcohol, Drug use, Grief, and Alcoholism

smupple's review against another edition

funny reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Chronic illness, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Vomit, Child death, Miscarriage, Suicidal thoughts, Abortion, Pregnancy, Drug use, Excrement, Infertility, Medical content, Terminal illness, and Medical trauma

Moderate: Grief and Cancer

Minor: Drug use, Domestic abuse, and Drug abuse

leonormsousa's review against another edition

challenging funny informative fast-paced

5.0

QUOTE

"So I told them the truth: the hours are terrible, the pay is terrible, the conditions are terrible; you’re underappreciated, unsupported, disrespected and frequently physically endangered. But there’s no better job in the world."

WHAT I ENJOYED

• the bigger message: no health care provider does what they do for money, they do it to help other people and for passion
• incredibly funny and witty
• very honest and raw, maybe a consequence of the descriptive and factual tone: the author does not try to paint himself or anyone else in a good or bad light
• great insights into the life of a medical care taker (doctor): 
  • the lack of working conditions
  • their struggles with balancing work with personal life
  • the pressure and the emotional weight they’re under
  • the feeling of unreadiness and how they grow as doctors with time
  • working in public vs private healthcare
• the side notes explaining the more medical/technical terms really help guide us common people
• the author narration in the audiobook is exceptional

WHAT I DIDN'T ENJOY

• if you’re not from the UK or are not familiarized with its health and education systems, there might be a couple of things that you don’t grasp as well. it's not something that affects your reading experience much and tbh a google search can probably solve it... 

RECOMMENDED TO

• everyone!
• i feel like it’s an essential read to better understand and appreciate the work of health care providers
• i imagine it might be especially interesting for other healthcare providers since they will probably relate to some of the experiences
• the only exception to my recommendation is if you have triggers connected to medical content & pregnancies (recommend checking the full list of TWs)

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Grief, Blood, Cancer, Domestic abuse, Eating disorder, Terminal illness, Body horror, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Pregnancy, Abortion, Child death, Drug use, Excrement, Infertility, and Medical trauma

cicelybelle's review against another edition

dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted reflective medium-paced

5.0

As someone who works in a veterinary hospital, I found this book in some ways very relatable as in the craziest cases are often true! It is a very enjoyable listen if you like biology and are appropriately thick skinned when it comes to guts, gore, and hospitals. It’s very funny, yet movingly and conveys well the strain the NHS is under. Recommend the TV series too, if you enjoy the book!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Drug use, Gore, Grief, Infertility, Medical trauma, Miscarriage, Abortion, Addiction, Blood, Child death, Pregnancy, Suicide attempt, Terminal illness, Violence, Alcoholism, Vomit, Cancer, Excrement, and Injury/Injury detail