British doctor-turned-comedian Adam Kay is best known for his book, This is Going to Hurt.
British doctor-turned-comedian Adam Kay is best known for his book, This is Going to Hurt.
A former British doctor turned comedian and award-winning writer has a warning for governments that don’t invest properly in their medical professionals.
Adam Kay grew up knowing he would become a doctor, with his father having been one as well. While he endured many trials and tribulations working on various labour wards around the country, it wasn’t until complications emerged in one delivery – resulting in the baby being delivered stillborn – that Kay realised he didn’t have the “emotional exoskeleton” to be a doctor and quit.
Several years later, he published the diaries he kept during his time as a doctor. His book, This is Going to Hurt, went on to top the bestsellers’ charts and scored a BBC adaptation starring Ben Whishaw that won Kay a Bafta.
Speaking to Paula Bennett on her NZ Herald podcast, Ask Me Anything, Kay said there was a political reason behind publishing them.
“At the time I wrote it in 2016, there was a junior doctor strike back home, and basically the doctors were striking about their working conditions, which they thought was making it unsafe for patients, and the government was saying, ‘oh, the doctors are being greedy, and the doctors are being lazy’, and I found it heartbreaking as someone who’d obviously been in the system, experienced it, and was now consuming the media from the outside.”
He is now touring the world with an hour-long comedy special based on his book, including a stop in Auckland this week as part of the New Zealand International Comedy Festival.
Kay said he initially thought the problems junior doctors faced in the UK were simply a problem with the NHS, but medical professionals from around the world, including Australia and New Zealand, have let him know the issues are universal.
“The mental health tolls on healthcare professions are absolutely extraordinary. I was reading there was a study in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry in January of last year, saying that suicide rates in nurses and midwives over here are twice the level of the general population. And we’ve got similar statistics back home.
“We are doing something wrong. We are not looking after the people who are looking after us.”
Ben Whishaw portrayed Adam Kay in the TV adaptation of his book.
Kay said one of the simple things on paper is funding for more staff and equipment, and he wants to see more doctors being trained so that one person isn’t doing the work of many.
However, he’s aware that trying to instill change through the health system can be difficult.
“I think one of the problems with healthcare systems all across the world is they are so big and they’re so long established that they’re very big ships, and a big ship is difficult to change course.”
Kay said he has received “hate mail” from parents or grandparents, who say that their loved ones changed their minds about getting into medicine after reading his book. He told Bennett he’s “pleased” his book had that effect.
“We talk about informed consent in medicine. So you’re having an operation, they tell you, ‘this is why you’re having the operation, this is what it’s going to help you with, and here are the risks’. And then you weigh it up and go, ‘Okay, I still want the operation’.
“I don’t think that I or anyone my generation back home went into medicine with proper informed consent about what they were getting themselves into. I went in with a rose-tinted view of it and, particularly in terms of the emotional aspect of the job and the toll that would take on me on a personal level on a daily basis.
“I think I’d have probably still done medicine, but I’d have probably found a less high-octane version of medicine than working on the labour ward.”
He said he’s glad his books present an accurate, fair reflection of what the job looks like, and that there’s a responsibility to make sure people going into any career know what to expect.
“If [my] book’s gonna put you off medicine, then medicine is really gonna put you off medicine.”
However, Kay admitted he misses the job “hugely”, and as much as he enjoys his time in the arts, he is aware it is not important work when compared to medicine.
“I miss the feeling that, even when I was driving home three hours late, splattered in blood, winding the window down in the car just so I could stay awake, radio blaring, I still had a smile on my face because I did that useful thing. And I do miss that.
“And I suspect that once this career of mine in writing, performing, dries up at some point, I’ll end up going back in some form. Probably not on to a labour ward.”
Listen to the full episode for more from Kay on what he needs to change throughout the healthcare system, plus adapting his life for TV and raising two children. His shows at the International Comedy Festival are on May 1 at the Bruce Mason Centre, Auckland.
Ask Me Anything is an NZ Herald podcast hosted by former deputy prime minister Paula Bennett. New episodes are available every Sunday.
