This is Going to Hurt

Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor

Adam Kay author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Pan Macmillan

Published:19th Apr '18

£10.99

Available for immediate dispatch.

This is Going to Hurt cover

The often hilarious, at times horrifying and occasionally heartbreaking diaries of a former junior doctor, and the story of why he decided to hang up his stethoscope

A Major BBC Series Starring Ben Whishaw. The multi-million copy bestseller and Book of the Year at The National Book Awards.

‘Painfully funny. The pain and the funniness somehow add up to something entirely good, entirely noble and entirely loveable.' - Stephen Fry


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 Bestseller for over eight months and winner of a record FOUR National Book Awards: Book of the Year, Non-Fiction Book of the Year, New Writer of the Year and Zoe Ball Book Club Book of the Year.

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

I’d prescribe this book to anyone and everyone. It's laugh-out-loud funny, heartbreakingly sad and gives you the lowdown on what it’s like to be holding it together while serving on the front line of our beloved but beleaguered NHS. It’s wonderful -- Jonathan Ross
Painfully funny. The pain and the funniness somehow add up to something entirely good, entirely noble and entirely loveable. -- Stephen Fry
So clinically funny and politically important for supporters of the NHS that it should be given out on prescription * Guardian *
Finally a true picture of the harrowing, hilarious and ultimately chaotic life of the junior doctor in all its gory glory, dark comedy and unavoidable sadness. A blisteringly funny account shot through with harrowing detail, many pertinent truths and the humanity we all hope doctors conceal behind their unflappable exteriors -- Jo Brand
As hilarious as it is heartbreaking – and it IS heartbreaking (also hilarious) -- Charlie Brooker
Blisteringly funny, politically enraging and often heartbreaking . . . hilarious . . . brimming not just with humour but with humanity . . . This should be a wake-up call to all who value the NHS -- Hannah Beckerman * Sunday Express *
A funny, excoriatingly revealing, beautiful book -- Dawn French
Horrifyingly hilarious and hilariously horrifying -- Danny Wallace
A ferociously funny book -- Mark Watson
Superb -- Pam Ayres
As a hypochondriac I was worried about reading Adam Kay’s book. Luckily it’s incredibly funny – so funny, in fact, that it gave me a hernia from laughing -- Joe Lycett
By turns witty, gruesome, alarming, and touching. Always illuminating and searingly honest -- Jonathan Dimbleby
Brilliant -- Mark Haddon

  • Winner of Blackwell's Debut of the Year 2017 (UK)
  • Winner of Books are My Bag Non-Fiction Book of the Year 2017 (UK)
  • Winner of Books are My Bag Readers Choice Award 2017 (UK)
  • Winner of Big Book Awards: Biography Award 2018 (UK)
  • Winner of National Book Awards New Writer of the Year 2018 (UK)

ISBN: 9781509858637

Dimensions: 197mm x 130mm x 19mm

Weight: 210g

304 pages