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

by Adam Kay

It was yet another item on the list of ways my job was inflicting collateral damage on H – medical widow, post-shift counsellor and now nomad.

Your stage persona evolves throughout your training but you generally settle on a way of dealing with patients a couple of years in, and carry it through into your consultant career. Are you smiley, charming and positive? Quiet, contemplative and scientific? I presume it’s the same decision policemen make when they decide if they’re good cop or bad cop (or racist cop).

Give them that opportunity to offload at the end of every shift, whether it’s a tiny irritation, a rant or a full-on sob.