Secret Diaries of a Young Doctor

This is Going to Hurt

by Adam Kay

With diary entries that alternate between absolutely hilarious and tragically poignant, a young doctor records events from his time working in the NHS that most of us would never see or hear about.  Two entries will give you a small sample of the general tone of the book.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

"Today, as I was making a perineum look slightly more like a perineum after a forceps extraction, the midwife asks mom if we can give her baby a vitamin K injection.  The patient treats us to some tabloid-newspaper sensationalist scare-story quackery - except it appears that this woman may have been holding her paper upside down.

She declines the vitamin K because "vaccines give you arthritis."  The midwife patiently explains that vitamin K isn't a vaccine, it's a vitamin that's very important to help with baby's blood clotting.  And it doesn't cause arthritis - maybe she's thinking of autism, which also isn't caused by vaccines.  Which the injection isn't.

"Nah", the mom says, "I'm not taking any chances with my baby's health."

Friday, November 12, 2004

An inpatient's lab results show her clotting process is all over the map for no good reason.  Hugo eventually cracks it.  She has been taking St. John's wort capsules from a health-food store for anxiety.  Hugo points out to her (and, in fairness, me) that it interacts with the metabolism of her warfarin, and her clotting will probably settle down if she stops taking it.  She is astonished.  "I thought it was just herbal - how can it be that bad for you?"

As soon as she says the words just herbal, the temperature in the room seems to drop a few degrees and Hugo barely holds in a weary sigh.  It's clearly not his first time at this particular rodeo.

"Apricot stones contain cyanide", he replies dryly.  "The death cap mushroom has a fifty percent fatality rate.  Natural does not equal safe.  There's a plant in my garden that if you simply sat under it for ten minutes, you'd be dead."  Job done, she tosses the tablets.

I ask him about that plant over a colonoscopy later. "Water lily."

Dr Kay stopped practicing medicine, unless you count laughter as a form of medicine.  He developed a career as a comedian.