This is going to hurt

(argghhh where is THAT edit button! - type too fast)

I loved the book! Which channel will it be on?

I went to see the author’s show three years ago. It was hilarious and tragic and very emotional.

I loved the book, but incredibly sad in parts.

I couldn’t understand it when people described the book as funny. I found it tragic that Adam Kay left medicine because of the unbelievable pressure of working in the NHS.
I’ve seen him perform 3 times - the last time he was clearly struggling mentally.

I won't be watching it. Ive seen enough of doctors and hospitals to last me a lifetime. Plus, if it's full of stuff going wrong I don't want to know. Hospitals terrify me enough as it is.

I'm looking forward to seeing it. Loved the books, it's certainly not going to be a "Call the Midwife" type program!

janeainsworth- we found it so funny, because anyone who has been a Junior doctor, well before Adam Kay did, working 130+ hours - knows just how close to the truth the book is. I remember, as a non medic, being truly shocked by the bone dry, black sense of humour of Junior docs, called housemen in those days- until I realised it was the only survival technique they had. I used to spend so much time in the Junior Doc's mess, and even lived at the Hospital for quite a long time- so I shared those days and stories very close up.

130+ hours per week, that is!!! Some on call, nights and week-ends, 1 in 3, on top of a very full day. Sometimes a chance to get 1 or 2 hours sleep, if lucky- but when working in Casualty, Cardiac ward, or indeed in obs and gynea- that was a real luxury.

And perhaps earlier generations of doctors should have called out the tyranny of the system so that so many doctors wouldn’t suffer burn out.
‘Well that’s what our generation put up with and now we’re laughing because young people are suffering in the same way we did’ - is that what you’re saying Kali2?

Errata, it was in fact 1 in 2, not 1 in 3, for the first couple of years.

It nearly killed my husband, twice -so NO jane, I am NOT saying that. He suffered long term damage, which made it very difficult to get a mortgage, and where I and the children were not properly covered by life insurance. So, sorry, NO!

There was NO choice- it was as it was.

I read this book when I was working on a Delivery Suite. So true, all of it.

Kali2 I’m just struggling to understand why, if your husband suffered so much while he worked as a junior doctor, you found Adam Kay’s book funny.
To me it was a story of the gradual breakdown of a dedicated young man who had no choice but to leave the profession he loved and to which he had dedicated over 10 years of his life.

janeainsworth, there was no alternative in those days - that was what the job was and if you wanted to become fully qualified, that was what you had to do. As for "calling out the tyranny of the system", can you suggest what copious free time there could have been to do that? Not to mention the difficulty, in some areas and some departments, of getting your next job?

One benefit was, of course, that you did get paid fairly well. In my day, we started to get actual overtime payments over - I think , but may be wrong, 60 hours - at a third of normal rate! That is one third of time, not time and a third. You had no time to spend it, so got some savings tucked away by the end of your junior house jobs.

I was lucky, as my house jobs involved less than the 130+ hours per week that Kali2 mentions, as I chose them for the hours rather than for the departments. I knew I couldn't cope with more than about 100-110 hours per week and wasn't ambitious.

As for the idea of saying "we did it so the younger ones can do it too", that is offensive, as nobody sane would wish that on anyone else. Mind you, we did have some older consultants who said that in their day they had to be available for longer hours AND do fire-watching on the hospital roof. There was no point in saying that a) they had a lot fewer treatments available than we did, b) people did not tend to sue them if they were knackered and made a mistake and c) there didn't happen to be a lot of incendiary bombs falling on hospital roofs during the 1970s.

Before 1973, there was no overtime pay at all, none whatsoever.

OH qualified in 1969 - and had to work those hours without overtime until 1973.

The he hospital where he was SHO changed from 1 in 2, to 1 in 3- to avoid paying overtime.

janeainsworth

Kali2 I’m just struggling to understand why, if your husband suffered so much while he worked as a junior doctor, you found Adam Kay’s book funny.
To me it was a story of the gradual breakdown of a dedicated young man who had no choice but to leave the profession he loved and to which he had dedicated over 10 years of his life.

I know, it does seem perverse, and I think you have to have 'lived it' to understand. Could never understand those who glorified the war years and said it was the 'best years of their life' considering how many friends they losts or saw crippled so badly, physically and mentally.

But in a way, for the doctors in those times, if they survived, it is a bit the same. Junior Doctors all lived together at the hospital- some permanently, others had other homes and had to live there when on call- as said, 1 night in 2 or 3 on top of the very full day, + weekends. They shared the Mess, talked, played bridge or whatever, always one person or two ready to take the hand as the bleeper called. It was a bit like being at boarding school. Ate there together too. They shared stories, joys and disasters- and the friendships made then, on job rotations that lasted 3 years - endured forever. It's difficult to explain. And if you did survive, then you look back in horror, but also with humour- at those bygone days.

But yes, some were broken by it all, physically and mentally- and went into research, pharmacology, etc- as they could not take the stress and or the hours, the sleepless nights when you then had to go on to do a full day on top. It impossible to describe just how bad it was. And yes, dark humour was the best survival technique.

Perhaps if you have lived it, you find it funny just because you know what it's about and just how hard it was. Anyway, it is a very funny book because he is good at writing in a way that makes things funny. That is why it appeals to people who have never lived through the experience as well, of course.

Wheniwasyourage

Perhaps if you have lived it, you find it funny just because you know what it's about and just how hard it was. Anyway, it is a very funny book because he is good at writing in a way that makes things funny. That is why it appeals to people who have never lived through the experience as well, of course.

Absolutely - yes, it graphically illustrates the pressures faced by all our NHS staff in the present climate, but it has some real laugh-out-loud moments in there too. In all the emergency services, I'm sure there are times when, if they didn't laugh, they'd cry.

wheniwasyourage As for the idea of saying "we did it so the younger ones can do it too", that is offensive, as nobody sane would wish that on anyone else
Just to be clear, I didn’t actually say that was my opinion.
But I’ve heard that view expressed many times and I’ve seen it on Gransnet too, and that seemed to be what kali2 was implying by saying she found Adam Kay’s account of his life as a junior doctor funny.

I also wasn’t suggesting that doctors working at the coalface of medicine were in a position to do much about their working conditions.
But their union representatives at the BMA and the leaders of the profession at the Royal Colleges could have.

As for the idea of saying "we did it so the younger ones can do it too", that is offensive, as nobody sane would wish that on anyone else.

Those are more or less the exact words used by a Consultant when my friend's daughter and other junior doctors complained about the hours when they were so fatigued it was difficult to function.

Indeed, exactly.

Yes, sorry, I don't think I was clear. I didn't mean that we didn't get that sort of thing said to us, as we did, but that I would hope that we wouldn't say it to young ones now.

Certainly hope so. And yet, must be hard for doctors who took it as par for the course to work 130+ hours- to have youngsters complaining now about 70 hrs per week. Or those complaining now as young GP trainees who do more or less 8 hrs day, with NO on-call at night, NO home visits and NO week-ends- when they themselves had to do all the above for 30 years.