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

by Adam Kay

For me, the true miracle of childbirth is that smart, rational people with jobs and the ability to vote look at these half-melted fleshy blobs, their heads misshapen from being squeezed through a pelvis, covered in five types of horrendous gunk, looking like they’ve spent a good two hours rolling around on top of a deep-pan pizza, and honestly believe they look beautiful.

Misery loves company, after all

A news story in the paper about a hospital porter who’s been jailed for pretending to be a doctor for the last few years. Just finished one of those shifts where I wondered if I could get away with pretending to be a porter.

I’m pretty unshockable, but I’ll never cease to be amazed by hospitals’ wilful ineptitude when it comes to caring for their own staff.

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.

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.

it’s a problem that’s baked into the profession. You can’t wear a black armband every time something goes wrong, you can’t take a month’s compassionate leave – it happens too often. It’s a system that barely has enough slack to allow for sick leave, let alone something as intangible as recovering from an awful day.

These days, the only doctoring I do is other people’s words – I write and script-edit comedy for television. A bad day at work now is if my laptop crashes or a terrible sitcom gets terrible ratings – stuff that literally doesn’t matter in the scheme of things.

Care for the carer.