• This Is Going to Hurt

  • Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor
  • By: Adam Kay
  • Narrated by: Adam Kay
  • Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
  • 4.7 out of 5 stars (639 ratings)

Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
This Is Going to Hurt  By  cover art

This Is Going to Hurt

By: Adam Kay
Narrated by: Adam Kay
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $15.72

Buy for $15.72

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

Winner of a record three National Book Awards: Non-Fiction Book of the Year, New Writer of the Year and Zoe Ball Book Club Book of the Year.

The million-copy best seller.

Welcome to the life of a junior doctor: 97-hour weeks, life-and-death decisions, a constant tsunami of bodily fluids and the hospital parking meter earns more than you.

Scribbled in secret after endless days, sleepless nights and missed weekends, Adam Kay's This Is Going to Hurt provides a no-holds-barred account of his time on the NHS front line. Hilarious, horrifying and heartbreaking, this diary is everything you wanted to know - and more than a few things you didn't - about life on and off the hospital ward.

Sunday Times number-one best seller and Humour Book of the Year.

This edition includes extra diary entries and a new afterword by the author.

©2017 Adam Kay (P)2017 Macmillan Digital Audio

Critic reviews

"Painfully funny. The pain and the funniness somehow add up to something entirely good, entirely noble and entirely loveable." (Stephen Fry)

What listeners say about This Is Going to Hurt

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    505
  • 4 Stars
    97
  • 3 Stars
    22
  • 2 Stars
    9
  • 1 Stars
    6
Performance
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    462
  • 4 Stars
    72
  • 3 Stars
    14
  • 2 Stars
    5
  • 1 Stars
    6
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    449
  • 4 Stars
    85
  • 3 Stars
    16
  • 2 Stars
    8
  • 1 Stars
    5

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Fun and honest about beeing a doctor

Beeing a medical doctor myself, I was exited about listening to this book. I found myself laughing and crying through the chapters. All the fun stories, the colourful personalities you meet in the hospital (both patients and staff), the fear of mistreating patients and all the extremely long and hard hours of work. It was so recognizable!

I live in Norway and I guess we have both better salary and work hours here, but doctors still work more than any other employee I can think of.

I started my internship married to a resident surgeon. My firstborn was only 1,5 years old at the time. I remember how I sometimes had to leave her with the nurses in the emergency departement because daycare closed and the shift of my husbond ended one hour after mine starded. I was so tired that I sometimes puked in the shower after beeing on dutey. I still feel that it is difficult resting on vacation; I feel that I have somehow lost the touch on how to relax. Still I love my job. It is the most interesting, rewarding and fullfilling job ever! :)

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Whine-fest.

I was expecting a little more of a story to be spun out of this, not literally a series of diary entries of a relentlessly whining and sarcastic tone.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Important and Funny

Mostly it's a lot of funny stories about being a doctor (in the UK), but underneath the funny stuff are some important, deeper stories.

Medicine may be the most admired career, and yet Adam Kay walked away from it. Why?
That's what this book is about. It's about him coming to terms with giving up something he put so much into, and really took over his life, or perhaps ruined his life. It's a cautionary tale, too, about bad government policies that take a situation where physicians will do heroic work for pennies, and wrecking this valuable part of British society.

I really loved this book. It made me want to have the author as a friend.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Humor and kindness

loved all of it , very true no matter what country you practice medicine in or what field

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Brilliant!

Adam’s sense of humour in displaying his experience during training is hilarious. He is an excellent author

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Heartbreakingly funny

This book was incredible. Heartbreaking at times, hysterically funny at others. This book has given me an insight into the doctors that dedicate their lives to our health and well-being, and the sacrifices that they make. I cannot recommend enough

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Brilliant

Absolutely brilliant. As a psychologist, I can identify with his love for the work and the damaged it caused him, loving it too much. All the while, with self deprecating, razor sharp humour, he allows us into this world.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Laughter and tears

Oh how I laughed and how I cried; tears streamed down my face while on a run. People can carry the heaviest of burdens and endure so much.

This book contains the bread crumbs of Dr. Adams journey through medicine and the reasons why he left. The anecdotes are so vivid I could almost hear the babies screaming and it just proves that reality is stranger then fiction. I could try and retell all the stories, but that would be lame, get out there read this book; trust me. I've gained lots of respect for the profession.

Remember ask your doctor friends how their day is going!


Quotes
- "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."
- "the depth of the lows is the price you pay for the height of the highs."
- "I notice that every patient on the ward has a pulse of 60 recorded in their observation chart so I surreptitiously inspect the healthcare assistant’s measurement technique. He feels the patient’s pulse, looks at his watch and meticulously counts the number of seconds per minute."

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Easy listen

Wow, what a book. Watched the series straight after since I couldn't get enough. It's heartbreakingly hilarious. A collection of short diary entries which makes it an easy listen. I laughed, cried and laughed till I cried.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Incredible

Thoroughly entertaining and yet gives you a renewed respect for health care workers. Definitely going to listen to it again and recommend it highly

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!