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

by Adam Kay

They must have something that cannot be memorized and graded: a great doctor must have a huge heart and a distended aorta through which pumps a vast lake of compassion and human kindness.

At least, that’s what you’d think. In reality, medical schools don’t give the shiniest shit about any of that. They don’t even check you’re OK with the sight of blood.

‘You’re going to get struck off if you write that. Change it to “pus-like” or put a hyphen in there somewhere.’

I look down at the offending phrase. ‘She has a pussy discharge.’

I’m now the only SHO of the new cohort not to have lost my virginity, as Ernie is so keen on putting it. Ernie doesn’t give me any option today – he introduces me to the patient as the surgeon who’s going to deliver her baby. And so I do. Cherry well and truly popped, and with a live audience.

The blood tests now all live in a drop-down menu, and to order one involves scrolling down an alphabetical list of every test any doctor has ever ordered in the history of humanity. To get down to ‘Vitamin B12’ takes 3 minutes 17 seconds. And if you press the letter ‘V’ rather than wading down there manually, then the system crashes so badly you have to turn the computer off at the wall and all but use a soldering iron to get it working again.

I want to lie and tell her everything’s going to be fine, but we both know that it won’t.

The other thing I realize is that none of her many, many concerns are about herself; it’s all about the kids, her husband, her sister, her friends. Maybe that’s the definition of a good person.

however, I found myself in a much more old-fashioned hospital. If you describe a grandparent as being ‘old-fashioned’, it’s a euphemism for ‘talks about ordering a Chinky’. In a hospital setting, it means ‘unsupportive’. You’re on your own.

Parents seem to think obstetricians are wise owls with expert knowledge of infants, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. We know the square root of fuck all about them, save for a few half-remembered semi-facts from medical school. Once a baby’s no longer umbilically attached to its mother, we hand them over and never deal with them again until they’re old enough to procreate.

Nobody joins the NHS looking for plaudits or expecting a gold star or a biscuit every time they do a good job, but you’d think it might be basic psychology (and common sense) to occasionally acknowledge, if not reward, good behaviour to get the most out of your staff.