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

by Adam Kay

I’ve been holding on to a glimmer of hope that I might knock off work early one day – if the hospital burnt down, say, or nuclear war was declared.

A widely held belief among non-medics is that there’s some degree of choice involved in coming home at 10 p.m. rather than 8 p.m. But really the only choice is whether you fuck over yourself or your patients. The former is annoying, the latter means that people die – so it’s not really a choice at all. The system runs on skeleton staff and, on all but the quietest shifts, relies on the charity of doctors staying beyond their contracted hours to get things done.

On more than one occasion my finger had hovered over the ‘fuck it’ button – days where things had gone wrong, patients had complained, rotas had changed at the last minute – and my resolve wavered. Not quite enough to start circling the jobs page of the paper, but certainly enough to wonder if I might have any long-lost millionaire aunts on their way out.

But there were two things keeping me there. Firstly, I’d worked long and hard to get as far as I had. Secondly – and I realize it might sound a bit worthy – it’s a privilege to be allowed to play such an important role in people’s lives.

Omg same same hecking

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.