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

by Adam Kay

not that I’m particularly excited about my Fiorentina; it’s just that the fucking thing has the exact same pitch and timbre as my hospital bleeper. H takes my pulse—it’s 95. Work has pretty much given me PTSD.

“At least you get a warm bed for a few nights,” I said. “Are you joking?” he replied. “I’ll get bloody MRSA in here.” It’s come to something when the streets outside a hospital have a better reputation for cleanliness than the corridors within.

the time to call the ambulance!” Most of these patients suffer from Eiffel syndrome—“I fell, Doctor! I fell!”—and the tales of how things get where can be skyscraper-tall (come to think of it, it’s only a matter of time before someone tries to sit on the Empire State Building), but today I’d actually believed a patient’s story.

I rapidly learned to maintain an air of absolute confidence no matter how frantically my legs were paddling under the water.

All physicians come to grips with the lack of promotion and financial incentives, but it’s harder to accept the fact that it’s rare to get a “well done.”

We’re constantly reminded by the GMC not to be doctor to friends or family, but I’ve always just ignored that and provided them an on-call private service. Because my job makes me such a useless friend in so many ways, I guess I feel like I have to offer something to justify my name on their Christmas-card lists.

I strongly suspect it’s designed so that the next step is always just round the corner.