Undoctored: The brand new No 1 Sunday Times bestseller from the author of 'This Is Going To Hurt’

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I think if I hadn’t done medicine, I’d probably have been a musician. Medicine insists that you have all these extracurricular interests and for me, that was mostly music and I really loved music. I wonder if I’d be writing for the piano right now, writing dots rather than writing words.’ I think Adam’s approach to life and his writing will divide people- of course, I am not defending any commentary that does show disregard, but I do think this book allows us to see a human side that is sometimes forgotten in the association of the medical field. Personally I know people who are doctors (and honestly are the most interesting people I know,) but you can forget about the high stakes that come with their line of work and the impact it can have on their mental and physical health. Kay is still a big supporter of the medical community, despite having hung up his scrubs (Picture: Dusty Miller) Undoctored is Adam Kay’s funniest and most moving book yet – an astonishing portrait of a life in and out of medicine, from one of Britain’s finest storytellers, and is now coming to the West End stage in an extraordinary new show.

With the NHS brought to its knees during the Covid pandemic, could we look to other health systems around the world for inspiration? I am a former NHS midwife. I gave up practising due to the negative impact on my mental health. What’s the most important factor in retaining obs & gynae doctors and midwi ves? Speaking of Whishaw, Kay is of course a fan of the actor cast to play the fictionalised version of Adam (who the author reminds us isn’t really him). Which do you prefer: people asking you for medical advice at parties, or people recognising you and asking you about Ben Whishaw?

Who is in the cast of Adam Kay: Undoctored - This Is Going to Hurt… More?

The thing that I thought as soon as I started watching the rushes come together, and then a bunch of doctors have said to me, is I can’t believe they’re not actually doctors, midwives and nurses, because they just embodied it so well. I think Ambika in particular, for someone who had basically done practically nothing on-screen before – she’s just such an intelligent, nuanced actor.’ A favourite passage, about going through his stuff in his parents' attic and finding his half-skeleton from medical school: It wasn’t censored. More than one channel wanted to show it, and the BBC said to me, if you work with us – who I really wanted to work with anyway because there’s a lot of similarities between the NHS and the BBC, these big, wonderful, but imperfect institutions – we will never once tell you don’t do that. And true enough, no-one never said that. But it is quite a different thing to the book, and that was quite deliberate because it’s quite a difficult book to adapt.

By turns hilarious, heartbreaking and humbling, Undoctored is about what happens when a doctor hangs up his scrubs, but medicine refuses to let go of him. I should say that given I'm a medic, this review will most likely be very medicine-centred. That's not to say I didn't enjoy reading all the other bits, just that I have something more tangible to say about medicine. You know us medics, it's always about medicine. Adam writes about how there's a certain homogeneity among medics. He explained how one of the consultants during placement forced him to cut his hair short and wouldn't allow painted nails. You're not supposed to stand out in a hospital. There's a certain image doctors are meant to project and medical students are held to the same standard--formal clothing in GP surgeries, scrubs (but NEVER outside a hospital because god-forbid how patients would react to that...okay, also because of infection control and all that), no outrageous coloured hair, no painted nails, formal footwear, no jewellery. I do think the rules are relaxing a bit. I know one girl in my year who dyed her hair red and I don't think she's faced any disciplinary action. There are also more tattoos among doctors and nurses! Though my own tattoos have been frowned upon by some elderly patients. You’re made health secretary tomorrow. Truss won’t give you any more money. What’s the very first thing you will do?

I was super excited to dive into this book because This Is Going to Hurt remains one of my favourite non fiction books of all time. While I still really liked this one, it definitely wasn’t what I was expecting. That’s what Kay does: bodies exploding. But Undoctored is also – and I do not know how conscious this is – an exploration of the comic personality type. Comics explode too: with words; with rage.

When I was writing her dialogue, I had Harriet Walter in my head. I didn’t actually think that Harriet would say yes, because she’s Dame Harriet Walter!’ I wrote This is Going to Hurt with a beginning, middle and end. I wanted it to be about the mental health of healthcare staff. I did what I set out to do and made a taboo subject an unmissable conversation. I have no plans for a second series, I’d hate to do one for the sake of it. But I am in the early stages of a new project which will hopefully become something, and, if it does, will be very different but, hopefully, people will watch it. It’s a major roll of the dice asking for medical advice, I’ve been out of the game a long time. All you would get are half-remembered semi-facts. And people are always disappointed when they ask about Ben Whishaw because he’s such a lovely man I can’t offer anything approaching a juicy anecdote. In This Is Going To Hurt you refer to obs & gynae as “brats and twats”. Isn’t that misogynistic and dismissive? You have been criticised for misogyny, particularly in the descriptions of women’s bodies, at the vulnerable time that is pregnancy and childbirth. What are your thoughts on this?It opens with a nightmare: his recurring nightmare of a baby he cannot save. But that is only the first of his agonies. His prat falling is vast in its scope, the self-destruction of an artist. I remember trying to get help for loads of mental health stuff through the medical school. To be fair, they are doing a lot more than your average med school but it was excruciating when the lady who was "screening" me asked whether I was exercising and socialising and eating and sleeping well. I was so ready to blow up in her face, "No shit those things help, that's why I've been doing them and that's the reason I'm seeking help--because they're not working!" And even people close to me succumb to comments like, "Why don't you just stop counting?" Gee, I wish I had thought of that. I think there's been some improvement in the attitude towards medics having mental illnesses. That doesn't mean we don't still have a long way to go. I think the chapter about Adam's conference presentation is a great example of this. He essentially bared his soul to a room full of doctors about why training needed to change and become more supportive. He was invalidated by the president of the Royal College. I understand that medicine is a demanding job. However, is it so much to ask to have a good life? I remember in my first year when I expressed concerns about not having a work-life balance to an OBGYN, she laughed me right out of the room and told me I shouldn't have applied for medicine if I expected that, that I had made the wrong choice and it wasn't too late to switch. That was probably one of the most disheartening talks I ever received from a doctor. Comedy is Kay’s forte but, as the first memoir related, he hung up his stethoscope after a tragic event: one of his patients lost her baby because of an unforeseen complication with her pregnancy and had to go into ICU for an emergency hysterectomy – and while it was not his fault, he felt it to be his responsibility and the catastrophic nature of it affected him profoundly. On the strength of talking to him, I’d say it still does. It always surprises me when people readily say they want children. In my head, I'm screaming, "Do you NOT understand how horrible the world is and what your theoretical children would be exposed to???" all whilst maintaining a calm and carefully neutral expression. Next month, the Observer will publish a “You Ask the Questions”-style interview with Adam Kay. Whether you’re a medical professional yourself or a patient, now is the time to ask him a question of your choice. Does he miss being a doctor? Do people still ask him about their ailments at parties? And did he really witness a marriage proposal after extracting the ring from you-know-where? Send us your questions

It took Covid: I offered and it turned out they didn’t want a gynaecologist who hadn’t worked for a decade. I will doubtless return when I reach my expiry date as an author, as all authors do. I suspect I’ve done my last shift on a labour ward but I think I potentially have something to give in education or policy within the service. Write down what it is you want to do at the bottom of a piece of paper, and then see if you can work on what the steps are to getting there. A lot has happened to Adam Kay since he left medicine, and even since he wrote This Is Going to Hurt; only some of it has made it into the books he's published since then ( Twas the Nightshift before Christmas and two books for children, Kay's Anatomy and Kay's Marvellous Medicine). I've read all of these and there were still things here that surprised me. I knew he is now married to a man named James, having been married to a woman he calls H in his first book; whatever, none of my business, but I presumed he was bi or his orientation had changed. Instead, he reveals that he was gay all along (had known he was since childhood, had even come out to his parents during his uni years), but still went along with a heterosexual marriage with all the best intentions. To an extent, he was doing what his parents expected of him, just as he was in following in his GP father's footsteps instead of pursuing music. I just started work in foundation year 1 and didn’t realise it would be this brutal. I’ve been a doctor for about a week-and-a-half and have already worked 120 hours, told someone’s family that their relative is going to die soon, verified two deaths and cried on the way home more times than not. I know you eventually left medicine, but does this next bit get any easier? Also, any tips for getting out of medicine?

And things are now better – they are not better enough, there’s still a long way to go – but it’s a big ship to steer.’ Behind Kay’s intensely critical voice – the one I objected to in This Is Going to Hurt, when it faced his female patients – the voice that whirrs on, presumably full time in his head, is his mother’s. Perhaps it is artistic licence, perhaps exaggeration, but he presents his mother as intensely critical, oblivious to his pain. Though medicine broke him, she yearned for him to return to it, as if she could not hear. He needed a microphone. Something that gave me hope through the pandemic – and continues to – is the public love for the NHS. I feel strongly that, were the NHS to come under any major existential threat, people would get to their feet and fight for it. I’m fortunate to get to meet medical students, nursing students and midwifery students, and get enormous hope from their energy. The NHS is in the safest hands – if it gets over the current bump in the road.