I have a bunch of books that I’ve read but haven’t had the time to review yet. The reasons for this are twofold. First, I’ve read several relatively short novels that I’ve breezed through in a few weeks. Second, I’ve had essentially no time to myself in the past month. I guess that’s what happens when you have kids. It’s easy enough to find time for reading, I suppose. Even after a long day of work and taking care of the kid, I can usually slip in 20 minutes of reading right before I go to bed. Writing is different. If I’m drained after a rough day at work, and trying to make do with less sleep than I would prefer, it’s hard to find the energy to sit down and focus long enough to put something on paper.
I read This is Going to Hurt during a week-long winter holiday. My sister’s boyfriend is a medical student and he had received it as a Christmas present the week before. It was highly recommended by both him and her. This is Going to Hurt doesn’t try to hide what it is; the concept is very straightforward. It follows the career of a graduate doctor from his first year in medicine to his eventual departure from the field (he went into standup comedy, of all things). He works his way up the hierarchy, specializing in caesarean sections and other challenging births. The chapters are brief looks into the average and unusual days of a doctor’s life.
The style, though, is by and large tongue-in-cheek. Adam Kay follows in the footseps of Anthony Bourdain (Kitchen Confidential) and Geraint Anderson (Cityboy) by describing the inner workings of a career by exposing its absurdities, intricacies and personalities. Bourdain did an excellent job showing the world what happens in the kitchens of the world’s best restaurants. Anderson didn’t fare as well with bankers. Kay slots somewhere between the two in terms of quality of writing and presentation. This is Going to Hurt is viscerally funny, however, and often had me chuckling alone.
There’s a method to the comedy. Humor is a great way to show how the clumsiness of bureaucracy wheighs down the healthcare industry. Computers are ancient, unattainable or out of order. Yet, doctors spend the majority of their time writing notes about patients and entering information on forms. Just like bankers and chefs, doctors are subjected to absurd work hours only to be told off by politicians or management. Working for the NHS, the British national healthcare provider, is great on paper, but doctors would be much better off going into private practice. There’s an air of sadness hidden in the humor. After all, these are serious issues - both those that happen in the operating room and those that emerge from the policitical process - and that’s what’s left once the jokes subside.