This Is Going to Hurt [TV Tie-in]: Secret Diaries of a Young Doctor

This was a difficult book to read because it's a collection of the author's thoughts about the end of her life, when she was diagnosed at age 37 with stage 4 (metastatic) colon cancer. She was a loving mother to two very young girls, wife to her husband, daughter to her parents, and sister to her older siblings. It was a devastating diagnosis and a heartbreaking journey that she took for the next almost five years, until she sadly died painful death characteristic of many stage 4 cancers. Her intent was to have this chronicle of her death published posthumously as almost a love letter to her family. What a gift for them!I found her thoughts were raw and honest and the book was very well-written. I only wish we learned more about her life and culture as a nearly blind Chinese refuge who escaped on an over-crowded fishing boat to Hong Kong from Vietnam -- all before she emigrated to the United State at age four.What I don't understand are the many harsh reviews. How can people criticize her painful journey towards her premature death and the treatment and other decisions she made along the way? How can reviewers tell her which spiritual or religious paths she should have taken? How can people be jealous of the fact that she studied very hard and graduated from an elite college and law school and that she and her husband made a generous living by working hard, long hours? Or that she didn't have to work while she was undergoing chemotherapy because her husband was earning a living? Why does this book necessarily have to be compared to Paul Kalanithi's When Breath Becomes Air memoir, a book I also read and admire? Can't Kalanithi's and Yip-Williams's memoirs stand on their own for their own merits and the life stories they told? Why are reviewers faulting the book because it's sad and depressing at times? How could a book about a young woman and mother in her prime of life dying from cancer NOT be sad or depressing?I just don't understand the harsh reviews. However, I recommend the book if you want to hear about how one person dealt with a devastating and painful cancer diagnosis.

This book is a revelation.I found it amazing that any hospital would want any doctor ( or nurse for that matter), to work until they really don't know what they are doing. That was the scary part. The funny parts are the patients and what doctors endure. The sad part is that this isn't confined to just a small percentage of hospital staff. The things Adam Kay reveals, and presents in a humorous way, seem to be commonI enjoyed this book. I have a much higher respect for my doctors time, and try to keep my questions on point during appointments.

A lot of humor amidst personal struggle to maintain oneself and keep going. I'm a retired ER nurse. I enjoyed the humor re the human condition, but not that it was primarily OB/GYN--just too narrowly focused for me. I have no idea how a non-medical person would receive this book, but it has great reviews from the same.My general impression: Lots of humor. Lots of personal stress of the author--very justified stress from loss of all kinds. And then a sudden, heart-wrenching conclusion. The author warns us at the beginning that he left the field. Still, after so much humor, the conclusion was jarring. Perhaps because there was no forewarning--no thoughts of leaving prior to it happening. And, after all the humor, the sudden ending of disaster leaves the reader searching for an overall emotion to ascribe to the read. The ending makes the book something 360 degrees different than what I thought I was spending hours reading. It's a good book, I'm just not sure whom I'd recommend it to.

In reading this I was grateful for my medical training having taken place in Australia where juniors are more supported and the industrial agreements and unions have more teeth. That being said, it definitely hit close to home as days and situations like those Kay describes are still a fact of medical life across all specialities. The wellbeing of hospital staff is always an important issue which is critical to ensure patients are safe and well looked after.

Being American, my knowledge of NHS is slim, with the exception of the information I get from reading the large amount of UK lit I read.However, Adam paints a picture of slapstick and moving me to tears. As a citizen of the planet, I'm outraged by some of the corners he has to cut over the course of his years as a doctor to make sure things are funded by the NHS, but at the same point, I think of the broken system here in America where millions have no health insurance, and I think, is that better? Just because I HAVE secure health insurance, doesn't mean that even my neighbor does. (Which I know for a fact, they don't)Although, politically, there was definitely outrage, and I was very much changed by this book by the low points, Adam's high points and his hilarity had me in stiches at many points, the overall point of this book was not lost on me.And the next time I go to the ER, I will be nicer to that doctor that seems like he has a bug in his butt. Who knows what happened with his last patient?

Watched the TV show first .Very funny and sad in parts. What the NHS staff do is tremendous, for little pay and often little thanks. It's on of those tough jobs caring for other people, big and small, and at all hours.

Como também médica recém-formada, muitas frases lidas até a então metade do livro parecem tiradas da minha cabeça – risada garantida. Está sendo uma leitura muito prazerosa, ainda mais por ter perdido o costume de leitura não-acadêmica após tantos anos entre pré-vestibular e faculdade.

Simpatico e pieno di spunti riflessivi. Consigliato per medici o studenti di medicina che hanno avuto già un primo approccio con le cliniche.Libro stupendo!

learned alot and laughed alot

It came in perfect conditions, which is good because I’m giving this as a present for someone!