This Is Going to Hurt: The Perils of Medicine

This Is Going to Hurt is a seven-episode BBC series (airing on AMC+ in the US) that is a fictional adaptation of the memoir by Adam Kay, who also created and wrote all seven episodes of this show. Ben Whishaw plays Adam, an OBGYN doctor in an underfunded and chaotic NHS hospital where he is forced to work long hours with little support or guidance while making life or death decisions every day.

Adam's colleagues include: Shruti (Ambika Mod), a junior doctor who is overwhelmed and needs some care and attention but only ever seems to get sarcasm and criticism from Adam; Tracy (Michele Austin), the hospital's extremely competent head midwife who has her opinions on how these junior doctors are getting on with their work; and Non-Reassuring Trace (Josie Walker), the other head midwife who seems competent but unfortunately thinks every patient is about to die at any given minute. There are also the consultants, Mr. Lockhart and Ms. Houghton (Alex Jennings and Ashley McGuire), who Adam would love to learn from, but he rarely gets to see them as he is expected to hold down the fort and only call for them in an emergency. Needless to say, this chaotic state of affairs leads to some very dire situations. We also see the toll that this work has on Adam's personal life. He has a wonderful boyfriend, Harry (Rory Fleck Byrne), who seems gloriously tolerant of Adam's demanding life and the fact that he will flake out on plans at any given moment, but there's only so much that poor man can take before he snaps. Harriet Walter plays Adam's mother, an extremely judgy upper-class lady who makes his life rather difficult, while Tom Durant-Pritchard and Alice Orr-Ewing are lovely as Adam's friends Greg and Emma who will go through quite the journey with Adam over the course of this series.

This show is technically not a comedy. But it's British, which means that even though it is dealing with heinously dark subject matter, everything is punctuated by sarcastic quips and jokes that will make a horrified giggle burst through your lips. I have already ordered Adam Kay's memoir from the library because I need to know if the tone of this book is as darkly comic as this show, but the writing is a thing of beauty. The dialogue is always a battle, with characters seeking reassurance from each other and never quite getting what they want, and everyone being slightly disappointing until push comes to shove and it's all hands on deck. The stakes are impossibly high at every turn - obstetrics and gynecology is an unusual specialty where you are responsible for two patients at once, and we see how the consequences of Adam failing to treat a pregnant mother appropriately can have ramifications for her baby. Every scene of this show is stressful and chaotic, so I'm warning you right now that you might need to dole it out to yourself in installments, instead of binging it in a fever dream like I did.

My personal favorite character, of course, is Shruti, the young Indian doctor who is the first in her family to go into Medicine and find herself completely questioning her life decisions. I empathized so much with this woman's struggles - she was quite literally me as a medical student. Her story arc on this show is poignant and incredible - she starts out as such a mouse and is treated so abominably, but she gradually comes into her own. And then our paths diverge. No spoilers, but Shruti's fate on this show is exactly what I envisioned when I was working in hospitals. Which is why I left medicine. In fact, this is not a show for anyone to watch if they are still in the medical profession. After all, it's written by a man who left Medicine and is very focused on highlighting the struggle and daily pressure that health care workers are under every day to care for their patients. It captures the absolute apathy they start to feel towards their patients - you may enter this profession to make a difference, but you cannot get too invested because it will grind you down. But one episode also offers up a cautionary tale of public versus private hospitals - even if healthcare is free in the UK, there are disparities in the way wealthy people choose to cut the line and "go private," and this series offers a searing rebuke of that whole system. 

This is Going to Hurt is a brilliant portrayal of all the reasons I couldn't be a doctor. All I can hope is that the politicians and hospital administrators watch this show and think about how they can do a better job to support the people who do choose to remain in the medical profession. We must ensure they don't have to endure quite such a hellscape every time they walk into work.