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

by Adam Kay

The extra mile was the normal distance. I wouldn’t have flinched if an entry read swam to Iceland for prenatal clinic or had to eat a helicopter today. I truly believe that anyone who ever has or ever will encounter a doctor should better understand what it’s like to be on the other side of the scalpel, should get to peek behind the scrubs, the gloves, and the calm demeanor.

the depth of the lows is the price you pay for the height of the highs.

But there were two things keeping me there. First, I’d worked long and hard to get as far as I had. Second—and I realize this might sound a bit earnest—it’s a privilege to be allowed to play such an important role in people’s lives. You may be an hour late home, but you’re an hour late home because you stopped a mother bleeding to death. You may have had forty women in a prenatal clinic designed for twenty, but that’s forty women relying on you for the health of their babies. Even in the parts of the job you hate—for me it was urogynecology clinic, a bunch of grannies with pelvic floors like quicksand and their uteri stalagtiting into their thermals—each decision you make can immeasurably improve someone’s quality of life. And then a patient sneezes, you have to get a mop and bucket, and you wish you’d opted for a career in accounting.

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.