This is going to hurt

What channel is this on? The question was asked earlier, but nobody replied.

mistymitts

I read the book, not sure to laugh or weep, especially laugh at some peoples dilemmas that they get themselves into. I can imagine that humour is the one channel of release for the stress that goes on in these careers. I don’t wish this on anyone. The NHS is just not valued enough, and the way that it is going, privatisation, is on the increase. Let’s hope that we don’t end up like USA.

www.theguardian.com/business/2022/feb/01/us-healthcare-giants-takeover-of-uk-gp-practices-lands-in-high-court

Battersea1971

What channel is this on? The question was asked earlier, but nobody replied.

It was replied to on previous page near the end

BBC 1 at 9pm on Feb 8th. I’ve just set my box to record.

Kali and wheniwasyourage comments are spot on. Black humour was a survival strategy in junior doctor years. Hours were awful, and when, as a trainee on a 1 night in 3 on call rota, I was called in the wee hours to do an emergency delivery, with the prospect of a full antenatal clinic or operating list to follow at 8.30 am, often without time for breakfast, I remember thinking, after midnight, you don’t get trained you just get tired. It wasn’t good for patients and it wasn’t good for staff. But the job itself is stressful, and if you understandably couldn’t cope with the demands of training, then you might well struggle with it once trained.
We did seem to enjoy ourselves more than today’s trainees, though, including young relatives of mine. We didn’t have much of a life outside the hospital and doctors’ mess, but the camaraderie there was supportive, as was the old “firm” system, where you had a team of doctors of various grades that you were always on call with and had great pride in (we were always the ‘A’ team!!). Your capabilities were known, you were trained in new techniques, and the patients had continuity of care from the same group of doctors. None of that happens now, most trainees live out, aren’t on call with the same people and the patients are being looked after by a different set of staff who don’t necessarily know them, without reading right through their often thick set of notes, every night. And might even be from another specialty. And are thinner on the ground because fewer docs are on call, in order to accommodate the shorter working week, leaving them even less well supported. The hours are fewer, in shifts, but whereas under the old system, at least when you were off for the weekend, you had the whole weekend off ( unless you were unlucky enough to have a list on Monday morning, when you had to go in to see the patients on the Sunday). Now many patients get admitted for major surgery the same day. Patients were in for longer then and you did get to know them. Now the trainees can end up working part of weekend after weekend without a full one off, though time off in the week, and often don’t find out what happened to a patient they admitted and so don’t learn from the disease progression, and are not in the hospital when their colleagues are because of the shift system, so can miss out. And the shifts are often short of staff as so many more people are needed to run this system, who weren’t bargained for when training numbers were set. Plus as mentioned elsewhere, in the “good old days” women were also effectively debarred from progressing up the career ladder if the had children (I remember being asked at interview if I planned to have a family), whereas now they can, and often wish to work part-time when the children are young, as do many of the men, for various reasons.
Callistemon, you are right that the European working time directive changed things. One thing it changed is that those on call from home, (and we were not allowed to live more than 10 miles or 10 minutes away), were not counted as being on duty even if called in, so were effectively working for nothing if called in, while those in the hospital were counted as being on duty even if they were able to sleep all night. Then the on call rooms were taken away anyway……….. (and often changed into offices)

And I did enjoy the books, and will certainly watch the programme. Loved Ben Wishaw in the Jeremy Thorpe serial. Can I also recommend “The Houseman’s Tale” and subsequent books, I think there were 4, by Colin Douglas for those who like medical black humour stories. There was a tv programme of that in the 1980’s, but I have never seen it repeated, sadly. The author was a practising geriatrician in Edinburgh, I believe, and I was told that those in the (small) medical world could recognise the characters, maybe that is why it wasn’t repeated.

I have read and enjoyed the book. Having worked as a trauma ward sister, married to an orthopaedic surgeon I totally get the pressures of the job and the black black humour. Now as a volunteer working with pregnant and new mums, many who will either go on to have traumatic births, or who are recovering from the same, I honestly worry about the negative effects of transferring the book to the screen. I am also one who truly did not find the book hilarious

My newspaper describes This is Going to Hurt as a "stellar comedy drama" but I'm not sure that I want to watch it. I'm not keen on hospital dramas so it will depend on how strong the comedy element is. I quite like Ben Wishaw. I used to love the "Doctor" films in the 1950s with Dirk Bogarde, mainly because I had a crush on DB. By today's standards the comedy was corny, sexist and full of innuendo.

I was married to a houseman Oofy .On general medical wards. I agree with all you say seeing it from the outside. One in two and every other weekend was his rota. I lived in with him on the nights he was on call and enjoyed the repartee amongst his colleagues in the dinning room and mess, our own abode was a rented flat within running distance of the hospital but getting called in the middle of the night was awful as it woke me up and he did when he came back in.
Black humour got them through it. Some consultants never called them by their first name and did not like them being married, when they saw us together they would say morning .....completly ignoring the wife.The worst black humour I ever heard was on the birth of our first child I was given flowers from the consultant with DH saying'Mr .......said to buy you these with the" Ash cash".
My proposal was a dare to walk along the medical school wall which I dared back as they worked hard and played hard.
He did do his training in obs and gyni though and I remember him making a comment about a baby that was used many years later on "Friends'. Not to the detriment of the baby health.
Years later we had a good laugh when he came in and said someone had stood up in one of his lectures and said they would have to go as their wife had baked a birthday cake. The cake would have been stale in Dh days.
I 'm looking forward to the programme.

As a person who has spent quite a lot of time in hospital over the years, I know that we owe a lot to the junior doctors. They work so hard... and, frankly, are often much nicer than their seniors!

A couple of days before DH died I was having a quiet talk with one of the registrars (A lovely boy, he will make a very good consultant) He remarked that on the cancer wards they got rather used to talking about death and I said "Why didn't you choose something like obstetrics with all those babies?" "Oh No!" he said "Imagine a baby or a mother dying!" I was instantly reminded of This Is Going To Hurt.

starts 9pm bbc1 tonight

in my opinion this is absolutely stupid rubbish.......turned it over..

So far I’m not impressed. As Lemsip says , stupid rubbish.

Another one who was not impressed. Too many crude stereotypes - aloof consultant, gormless junior, racist patient etc etc

I thought it was so near to truth that it was brilliant.

Not exactly Call the Midwife is it? ?

lemsip

in my opinion this is absolutely stupid rubbish.......turned it over..

You said you enjoyed the book, lemsip, is this not true to the book?
I haven't read it.

Apparently he left medicine after an incident shown in the TV programme this evening.

Having worked in the NHS I thought it portrayed how it really is a lot of the time. The outside shots were my local hospital Ealing.

Tried hard to tolerate this but gave up after forty minutes. Utter tosh.

I think it is very close to the book Callistemon21 better than some of the adaptations we see. I think the incident we saw tonight was an earlier one. The one that caused his resignation was more catastrophic.

I think the consultant's attitude is still quite common. One of the nurses who looked after DH was in awe of his consultant because he not only didn't mind being rung at home late at night, but was grateful for the updates.

to answer a posters question;
People who haven't read the book didn't understand why others said it was funny.........well it was his life at the time and even doctors laugh aswell as cry after some tasks..the book was written that way..... This tv show was 'low'. and disgusting racist which i don't find funny!

he is a comedian of course..but, I didn't find this funny and turned over....

I think the consultant's attitude is still quite common

I came across a consultant just like that one (possibly more arrogant). He not only treated the staff with disdain but the patients too. He was astonished, I think, when I questioned what he said.

Consultants think they are God. It's a hard road to get there and when they do, I think they must be walking on air. Most may not make it?

I haven't read the books, but it seemed pretty realistic in terms of the short staff and gritty too. A bit yuk when the floor had blood all over it, but I'd watch again.

My friend is married to a Consultant

A lovely man who looks a bit like Hugh Grant