Walking The Dog with Emily Dean - Adam Kay

Episode Date: March 22, 2019

This week on Walking The Dog Emily goes out for a stroll with comic and author of the acclaimed best selling book This Is Going To Hurt, Adam Kay. Emily brings along Archie a golden lurcher from the Dog’s Trust for her chat with Adam in West London. They talk about Adam’s childhood growing up in a medical family, the moment when he realised a surgeon’s life wasn’t for him, and why he’s so passionate about the NHS. This is Going to Hurt is available now in paperback and if you want to see Adam on tour this year go to Adamkay.co.uk for more info.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We're coming up to another dog, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to preload him with snacks. Good idea. There. Good boy, Archie. Now, what's this dog ahead? That's basically a horse, that one. Archie's not going to win this fight. I think he stood a good chance against, oh, Archie's playing very nice.

No, Archie. And it's gone wrong. No second date. This week on Walking the Dog, I went out for a stroll with comic and best-selling author of the acclaimed memoir This is Going to Hurt, Adam K. Adam doesn't have a dog, so we borrowed Archie, a lurcher from the Dogs Trust for our walk around London's Chiswick Park. If you've read Adam's incredibly brilliant book, you'll know already that he spent the first part of his career as a junior doctor, and he provides such a fascinating insight into the highs and lows of the job. I could honestly grill him for hours.

But mainly about my own medical problems, Adam is honestly one of the kindest, sweetest people you'll ever meet. He's sort of living proof that nice guys finish. first and he's also got that rare combination of an enormous brain and a huge heart. As you can probably tell, I'm something of a big fan and I'm not just saying this because I want him to give me free medical advice, although have a look at my dodgy knee while you're there, Adam. Adam is also a really talented stand-up and you should go and see his live show, This Is Going to Hurt, which is on tour all over the UK until August. For tickets, go to this is going tohurt.com. And for more info on Dogs Trust, please visit

doggs trust.org. That's about it. The Doctor will see you now. Here's Adam. Me to take Archie or are you going to take Archie? I'm happy to be mother and then when that goes wrong you can take over imagining somewhere near that bike. Okay, well you take Archie. Which way do you want to go? I mean I'm in your hands.

Do you know this, area. We're in your manner. It's my manner, but... This is the point when I introduced the podcast. I'm totally disorientated about having a dog. This is Walking the Dog. I'm Emily Dean. And I'm really excited because I'm with the incredibly wonderful Adam Kay, comic, best-selling author.

Dog Walker. General Human Wonder. Adam Kay. And we're in your manner ads, aren't we? Yes. I don't want to do a sort of burglar's guide, but it's the West London area. Can we say where we are?

We're in Chiswick House Gardens. Yeah. Which is all very pleasant, isn't it? Well, I was here with Al Murray not long ago. Oh no, no, hang on. Don't do that, Archie. Not been trained at this. I've been taught how to walk you and give you a snack.

Not break up. into dog sector in violence. Millwall and West Ham trouble. We should say Archie just saw two dogs up ahead. You're the dog expert. You're going to have to say what they are. I'm going to call that one a black dog and that one a beige dog. That looks...

That a Labrador? That looks like a gold... Oh no, don't do that. Archie? Archie. Archie? Would you like a snack? Archie?

Archie. Oh my, Archie? There we go, there we go. There we go. There we go. Emily Dean is currently cuddling a very angry Archie. Totally changed personality the minute the lady from the dog trust gave him to.

In retrospect, we should have chosen a place where there were no other dogs. So I feel we should explain who Archie is. Yeah, sorry, yeah. Archie's my nephew. So we've got Archie, who's a lurcher, who... It's a borrowed dog. He's a borrowed dog from the... a dog from the Dogs Trust who I work with a lot and they're really good charity re-homing charity and we heard a bit about Archie's backstory didn't we we did which

was he's been at the Dogs Trust twice he appeared with them and took a bit of oh no ignore that there was some birds he was lurching at birds it was like the 90s all over again he was on full lurch so yeah he's quite as we're as the audio demonstrates, he's quite a bouncy dog, which is the euphemism that the dog trust used for a lunatic. And so his initial owners weren't stealing very well, and then he was rehomed. In fairness, I can see where they're coming from.

And then he was rehomed. But then that one went wrong as well. And so he came back on sort of sale or return. And now he's... He's with us. Now, we've got him on, I would stress, a very temporary basis. So how are you finding Archie? I've always wanted to have a dog but never been allowed a dog because my husband hates me.

He's got reasons like we're always away from home and sort of working away on TV stuff and whatever. This is James. We're like to mention his name. I think it's happened now, hasn't it? So that's James. It's official record. So James, he's not a fan of dogs? He's sort of not a fan of the dog paraphernalia, like the walking and the shitting.

Okay. And, no. And should give him a snack? It's a great idea, aren't you? Would you like one of these? There we go. Good boy. We're friends, aren't we?

Nice and easy. I think it's mostly the shitting. Right. Because we've come a long way since the days of the wolves, haven't we, in terms of dog breeding, like your one. one, Ray, can quite comfortably go in a handbag. Yes. And there are like the pugs that look like they've been like sort of sanded down. But we've not sorted out the gastrointestinal issue that dogs have.

And so I think we can breed them into a sort of anuseless system. Then I think that would really help me onto the journey of getting a dog. If you don't want me saying, you can tell you might have studied medicine at that point. It's like when you watch TV with a makeup artist and they say, Look at the shine on that. It's the Judy Dench. Yeah, okay. We're coming up to another dog.

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to preload him with snacks. Good idea. There. Good boy, Archie. Now, what's this dog ahead? That's basically a horse, that one. Archie's not going to win this fight. I think he stood a good chance against,

oh, Archie's playing very nice. No, Archie. And it's gone wrong. No second date. Do you know what, though? That would be a great way of speed dating. At least you know. No, within two seconds.

Yeah, because it would, yeah, you can't date someone whose dogs want to kill yours. No, I meant for the dogs. If humans behave like that. Oh, yes. Just make it very clear, just scream in their face. But then again, they've got shorter lives. That's probably what a normal relationship looks like in the same, you know, on the same time scale. Oh, so as I want to.

Yeah, we had one dog date. As I want to talk about your child, like Zipin Freud. Okay. But did you have dogs when you were growing up? No, we were a cat-based family, but, oh, more dogs. This is the wrong post garage. So we're going to, it sort of worked before when I gave him the,

oh no, because Archie could have all of those, couldn't he? Those are the, you know, stupid sized dogs. There's so many dogs coming at all. Yeah, it's like a joke. We've got one, two, three, hello. Three, three, four. And I guess that one's technically a dog, isn't it? Okay, good boy.

Good boy, good boy. Oh no, those ones are back ads. Oh no, okay. Sit, good boy. Oh, that was clever. I'm a bit Doctor Doolittle. You are? So, yeah, you're childhood as when you were growing up.

Yes. Well, you grew up in London. Yeah, London. But we spent a lot of holidays up in North Yorkshire, and our best friends, family friends up there, always had Airdale Terriers. And so I, that's my, that was my ideal, I think probably still is my ideal dog. I mean, I put the request in, he goes out with a fucking lurcher.

But, no, offence, Archie. Arch, Arch, Archie's great. Archie's great. So when you were growing up, so you, you came from a family of, I mean, was it a long line of doctors? Or your dad was a doctor, is that right? I'm sort of, there's always a, as medics call it, a positive family history. My dad's a doctor, my brother's a doctor, sister-in-law's a doctor, sister's a doctor, it's sort of...

Your sister's a doctor as well. Yeah, and also, she didn't read my book at all because she's gone into obstetrics. The same mistake, I'm me. But it turns out, looking at her CV, she seems to be a lot better at it than I was. Did your mum work, or was she a homemaker? No. Yeah, she was a homemaker. And...

And I always imagine... I don't know. I think I just assume, because I know the schoolie, went to which is Dulwich which is quite a posh boy school but I just think of it as like a very as I suppose I describe you by kind of middle class yeah it's middle class to the extent that being a doctor was sort of inevitable so family of doctors quite liked casualty um went to the sort of school that was designed to churn out you know doctors and lawyers and architects and all that stuff Did your parents ever talk to you in a sort of, when you're a doctor or, you know, was it?

I don't think it was ever that on the nose, but it was just more of an understanding that when I was choosing A-level subjects, it would be like, well, I mean, if you do, you know, you're good at the silence, why don't do that? Also, I didn't, in fairness, I didn't have any other, you know, ideas. So I'm one of four kids, I'm the eldest of four, and three of whom went to medical school, and the other one did law, you know, Jewish family, my son, the doctor. But James, my husband. The other golden and hairy lurcher.

Yes, in my life, the more permanent lurcher. His dad was in advertising. He was sort of a creatively type. He's one of four as well. And they are, James is in telly, and the next one's in telly, and the next one's in music, and the next one's in, like, digital media. So it would have been weirder if they all became doctors and lawyers. Because I guess as a parent, I don't guess, I know as a parent, you want the best for your kids.

And, you know, that's what you know, that's safe, your world. You know, we did all right as, you know, ad people or as doctors. And what kind of, was your dad a surgeon or a GP? His GP. And retired a year or so ago. Oh, okay, we've come across. I'm going to say 400 birds and a dog. Okay, this is a real test.

Oh, that's a lovely dog. Is everyone with a dog recording a podcast? Is it just us? You do stop to think now that at time. It's like an episode of Black Mirror, but you find out every dog walk is publicly shared. So was your atmosphere at home? quite... How would you describe it? Was it fun? Was it lively? Was it noisy? Was it... I always

describe my childhood as sort of benevolent chaos, if you like. I think my family was a fan of rules. So, and there was a lot, you know, I had to learn loads of musical instruments and, you know, we all had to have extracurricular activities and did lots of homework. I remember a lot of homework and a lot of piano lessons. And I'm a lot of... some love and stuff in there as well. Yeah. And were you close to your siblings? Were you close to your siblings?

Yeah, so there's a boy, boy, boy, girl. There was a big gap between child three and child four. So my sister, I didn't spend a lot of, I didn't really know, she hadn't sort of developed a personality by the time I'd gone off to university. But she seems all right. But my brothers, I'm not close in age two. And yeah, no, no, we're all good.

We're all good. Oh, there's three coming here. And four, four. That looks like... Okay, arch, arch. My goddaughter Betty, who you're familiar with, who you're friends with. That looks nothing like her. It looks like her dog.

See that one? Oh, yes. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The little grey one, yeah. Fence, really sweet. Yeah. You see, how do you feel, I wanted to ask you this, how do you feel about the interaction,

which you're probably starting to realize as very much a part of the dog walking experience? like that or no no no no I presume you're getting that that vibe are you an introvert ads on extrovert I'm an introvert which feels a weird thing to you know sort of go on stage a lot and do things but that's very different that's on display but you know I'm quite happily of a normal day only ever speak to the deliveroo driver when you were growing up then as stop eating that will you funny? Did you have that sense? Because as I say, I mean, I know obviously you were good at maths and

music and the two are often connected, aren't they? But you had that kind of a brain. But was there a sense of you being the clown? Yeah, no, I was always the, I was always the class clown. And I enjoyed writing, but it was never sort of really nurtured because it couldn't be, if you're doing four A levels in science. So it sort of, it went by the weight of, it went by the side in school really. And I worked on the school newspaper and stuff, so I had sort of a bit of writing, but it sort of went into, I don't know,

that went on pause until university, where at medical school there's this tradition of doing terrible, you know, shows, comedy reviews. Yeah. Is that the sort of rag week type of thing? Bagwick thing, yeah. In my medical, it was called the soiree, which you know, you make fun of your professors and your consultants

and imagine your patients, you know, all that stuff. And that's, I really, I wasn't good at it, but the show was absolute dog shit, apologies, Archie, and I was sort of... Oh, at all you're speaking news language. I was mediocre in a terrible show. which, you know, sort of encouraged me to do more and more and more. Yeah.

And then I became a doctor, which doesn't allow for an enormous amount of free time. So the performing that I'd sort of, I think I was well known amongst London medics. I'd achieved becoming the known comedian in that extremely tiny niche. And did you have that sense, ads, when you were doing that, so you were going, I should call you Adam, it's very unprofessional. In fact, you're the only person in the world who calls me ads. I quite like it. I always make up strange nicknames to people. No, it's good.

I mean, you've not saved a lot of time with that abbreviation. You've slipped out a syllable. We've gone from, it's not getting an Alexander down to an owl or anything, is it? But no, go go for it. I'm calling this dude Arch and we've only just met. But did you have that sense of? of, I suppose, slightly being on a, not conveyor belt. That sounds really rude.

No, I think that's exactly what it was. Yeah. That's exactly what it was. But it was a great conveyor belt to be in. It's the journey of, you know, the journey of, you know, becoming a doctor, working as a doctor. It's the most amazing privilege in the world to do that job. And it's something that's a dream, an unachievable dream for a huge number of people. And so I don't feel like I ever resent.

I rented it until the point where I realised I'd made totally the wrong decision and that sort of, that sort of in retrospect, coloured it a bit. But at the time, I didn't feel like I was being pushed into it. Yeah. But then again, at no point had I ever said I want to be a landscape gardener. And, you know, this is my obsession. Let's do this. Oh, we've got some more dogs coming here. Let's have a look. I'm going to describe that one as a brown dog with a big tongue.

And is that right? I think that's some sort of setter. Archie, Archie, good boy. There you. What kind of, what is it again? Flat-coated retriever. Hello? Archie, Archie.

Archie's paying, too friendly. It's not a very usual colour. No. Is that right? Yeah. That's what he's in the dogs trust. He is a lurcher. He's...

Yeah. Do you join him? I've already got him. Okay, phone. Fair enough. They don't seem to like each other. It's good choice. Sorry, dog's chub. I thought, I thought we might have rehomed him for a second there, but whatever. He was very down to an abbey. I like that man.

He was got a flat-headed retriever. Flat-headed retriever? A flat-headed retriever. I know. Screwdriver. They come as flat-headed and Phillips. Was your school, by the way? Your school was Dulwich, college, wasn't it? It actually has a tradition of churning out lots of,

as well as being a sausage factory with Doctor. and lawyers, it's managed to get a few authors out there and so P.G. Woodhouse was there and Raymond Chandler and Michael and Darcher and all sorts of interesting people. Ernest Shackleton. Oh wow. Okay. Both dude. When I was right at the end of my time at school, that film, Perfect Storm came out. And then everyone had suddenly heard of Shackleton. Previously, no one had heard of Shackleton, that's sort of, you know, anti-optic nerd or optic nerd, whatever. exactly and he'd for some reason donated his boat the James Caird to his old school

and so it was in one of the the cloisters I mean to give you an idea of this it's not sort of totally rough I was going to say you I mean we were just like we had the the boat in the cloisters yeah in the south cloister and so it was this this horrible sort of old boat propped up on some rocks if you if you got out of lessons early before the bell at lunchtime, you could go and eat your sandwiches. You go into the boat and sit, and then, which was just to sort of, you know, fit a few people in there. It was quite fun.

I'm pretty sure I'm graffitied it. Anyway, I shouldn't say that. I'm pretty sure I definitely haven't graffited it. And then suddenly, Ernest Shackleton became extremely famous. And now the boat is hermetically sealed in a sort of temperature and humidity controlled environment. Did you have that sense of I was into the Smith's years ago? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, since his first album. So were you, as you know at school, I always described myself as I was clinging on to the pretty team by my fingertips,

always being threatening to be objective. Of course, yeah, you went to mean girls, didn't you? Yeah, I went to Mean Girls High. It really was, I think about it, but that's another story. But so I had that sense of, you know, I was always about to be excommunicated and I had to, you know, but I wore the wrong shoes or what, who was your group of friends and what was your role in it? Oh, I don't really know. Probably, probably sort of nerdy rather than a bit of the music crowd, a bit of the maths crowd. Yeah, I definitely definitely wasn't cool. I like those people.

I tried to be cool for a bit. And then I realised this is exhausting. And it's not, it's not working. It's like if I tried drag or something. I could make as much effort as I liked. But the way I carry myself, the way everything was against me. So eventually I decided, oh, I don't want to be. How did you try and be cool?

Did you go golf, maybe? Or? It's just sort of I would listen to music that I didn't even like, just so I knew about this music that I hated so I could, you know, sort of, I was never goth. I mean, I did, I mean, I'm just, I say my, my prayers of gratitude every day that there wasn't Facebook at this point and there, as far as I know, there's relatively little photographic evidence of this, but I used to have my hair done in different. dyed patches of different, you know, different colours of browns and blondes and, like, you know, in a way that, you know, the dog struts would really struggle to rehome me.

What I like is that you didn't go for green or pink. You went for a nice sort of... Like a mutt. Gove a nice sandy brown and a golden caramel. Yeah, but it was like a jigs. Archie, you're going to have to let go of that because that's your... Archie? No, no.

No, no leave. Good boy. Okay, I'm now out of snacks. I've got loads. Okay, fine. Can I chuck some in my pocket? It's like, what's the film? I can't remember the period of time of hours, but when the man gets stuck in between the rocks and has to cut his arm off. Oh, yeah, yeah. Something hours? How many hours? Yeah, 127, let's say. If we're wrong, I apologise. But that's what it feels like with archie snacks. The countdown. Exactly, yeah, no. At that point, we're fucked. He's going to take off. mull and boxer. So, and we mean an actual boxer, we mean Anthony Joshua at this point.

Yes. So your cool phase, which I enjoy very much. Yeah, I want to say, it was my perception of cool. Oh no. It's because we chat a lot in real life, sort of forgetting we're being recorded. But you know, it's interesting, isn't it? Because I have this theory that those, it's not this, theory, I think it's actually proven in some ways that people who tend to feel not part of the

cool gang, do you know what you mean, the non-jocs? Yeah. They are the ones that I think, being old enough to see this happen, tend to be opinion formers in later life and they have, you know, they create interesting, important work. Yeah, it's interesting, what would you say to your younger. I would say buy lots of shares in Apple, I think, and have loads, loads more sex. What would you say about, would you say, because look at, you know, the success that you've had and, as we should say, you went to medical school, you went to, oh yes, became a doctor.

So you went, you did medicine at Imperial. That's right, which is part of the University of London. Are we allowed dogs in there? Sure, dogs on short leads only, don't worry. Well, we can make it. Well, this is pretty short. So you went to Imperial. We're touching thighs.

Did you get like... Do dogs have thighs? Dogs trust? Do dogs have trot thighs? No. Okay. These two lovely women are just called dogs trust. Do you got, how many A's did you get?

Yeah, I got... Alright, Mum. I had four A's at A level. Oh. But you had to, you had to. You had to. You had to. And what were the A levels?

I did, physics chemistry. Imagine if we found that you were one of those lying authors. You didn't lie, you got four A's. And they were in physics chemistry, maths and further maths. Swoon. I didn't, no, we can't go in there into the greenhouse. I do find that quite swoon-wily. This adds to the theory that I'm not cool, doesn't it?

That's not, none of the cool people are doing those A-levels. Okay, now there's a crowd of up. Old people coming up. Yes. Really, really old people. And a staffie. And a staffie. I love that stuffy.

Yeah. Okay. Now the staff is getting down off the bench. Hello, stuffy. Hello, darling. Okay. Dogs just looking nervous. What's he called?

Kruger. Kruger. This is Archie. They're friends. Good. Hello, darling. Okay. Come on, Arch.

Archie, you don't want to take. on Kruger. Kruger's looking at him, he didn't blink. He was just like, you having a laugh, mate. Awesome. It's like revving your, revving your car when you're next to a Ferrari. Kruger. I mean, Kruger was like Ross Kemp. Yeah, exactly. Also, the fact that he was called Kruger, Freddy Kruger. Yeah, exactly. It's like a rectangle shape. It was like a sort of like... He was sort of like... So angular. Yeah, he was a sort of... You could stack them.

It was a bit Maradonna, I think, physically, which is how I compare myself. The A-level thing. Yeah, go on. The best doctors are not the cleverest doctors. It's because I think it's a communication job. It's not a nerdly remembering your sort of biochemistry lectures sort of thing. But medicine has always decided, which I think is wrong, to set the bar for the academics required quite high.

And at the same time, they differentiate between the speech, people who were on for all these air levels, not by interviewing them to see if they're made of the right material in terms of how they're going to deal emotionally with the bad days at work, but by having lots of extracurricular activities. So actually, the fact that I played the piano and the saxophone and the trombone, I did the school newsboy stuff, that was like tick, tick, so if you go to any medical school, everyone's got their, you know, their grade eight cell owner, captain of the lacrosse team on the first eleven and the first first a few.

I like the fact that they thought playing the saxophone was good. Like, what, you're going to be a doctor in the Muppets or something? But it's just the way, this surrogate measure they've always. And it's been always. So if you look at the Wikipedia entry of any famous doctor, it's always been the same. So after you went to Imperial and you then do, after you've done your degree, which is how long? It's, and mine was a six-year degree. because I also as well as the medicine degree that I had a Bachelor of Science,

but it's either five or six as an undergraduate. And then you decide what you're going to specialise in. So basically you do the same basic year, which is now two years, in a hospital where you're a house officer or a foundation doctor. And so that's when you work 16 hours a day and get covered with bodily fluids and not even the fun kind. And you decided to specialise. in...

Obstetrics and gynecology, obs and gyne. Rats and twats, as it was known. Maybe for the times it's called parts and labour. And why did you decide to do that? Sort of depends, who's asking. You know, if I was being interviewed by someone proper, Emily, I would say that it was, you know, what an amazing privilege to, you know, work on labour ward and... But the truth of it is, no, stop eating that.

He was talking to Archie, by the honour. you by the way. But actually so when I was when I was at medical school you rotate around each of the different specialties I think I was always hoping I would go to the one and be like ophthalmology this is it this is what I'm going to be I never quite found it but when I was doing what's ophthalmology eyes okay oh yeah and that's the way I can't I can't even put eye drops in myself I would that definitely wasn't ophthalmology but when I did And Obst & Guyeney on Labour Ward, there was a registrar, so a middle grade doctor, who I really

respected, which means fancied, who told me that if you work in labour ward, you only have to learn how to do four different things, which is Caesarean section, von Toose, which is the mini hoover, four steps, which are the salad tongs, and then sewing it all back up afterwards. And the obstetricians listening will pretend there's more to it. There is slightly more to it, and you have to work out when to do each of your four tricks. But that's basically what the job is. And so, When it came to choosing, I thought, well, because nothing was, I was obsessed with anything, I might as well do something that I think might be fairly easy. I'm interested in that because in your book, which we are going to get on to,

because I'm sure everyone will be aware of it, it's kind of hard to ignore. It's called This is Going to Her and it's sold a million copies since it was published two years ago. It's outsold Michelle Obama. Michelle, who? And not only isn't it, an extraordinary sort of professional achievement for you, but I think it's interesting because that book has really touched people. I think it's open to conversations, actually, about the NHS and about the way we perceive doctors. And even though it's funny because you're a comic, obviously, and that's how you're best known,

I imagine having written that book, I mean, I'm leaping ahead here because obviously we need to talk about why you decide. to leave medicine and being a surgeon. I want to go back in time to having chosen that path, why you decided it wasn't for you? I wasn't made of the right material. Every medical specialty is basically like this sign wave, going constantly up and down and up and down. But different specialties have a different height

to their sign wave. I chose, stop whimpering, come on, it's fine. I chose... Oh, you're saying about bedside manner. Yeah, exactly. So that was the surgical type. That's Adam's palliative, perkins. So I was drawn by the height of the highs of my specialty.

Obviously, there was no better day at work than, you know, than delivering babies. I also worked a lot in infertility clinic, you know, giving, you know, couples who wouldn't have historically been able to have children at all. Only a few decades ago, now it's actually very very. very rare for reasons other than money, annoyingly, to say to a couple they won't be able to have children. So it's huge highs, but no one in medicine really talks about the loads. It's like I'm saying at the start about how you pick doctors. It isn't how you're going to deal with the bad days. That's never mentioned.

It's all, if you want to be a pilot, they'll make you go, you know, speak to someone and go through huge amounts of psychological testing. If you want to be a train driver, they'll make you speak to someone in case the worst happen, someone jumps in front of your train. And I think, it's because there's this cultural thing that we're bloody doctors and we bloody get on with it. Archie? Archie. No, we'll tell Kruger, we'll tell Kruger. Archie sit. Good boy.

Sit. Sit. Good boy, actually. Yeah. I mean, we said good boy. He didn't sit. I know. Just posturing for the podcast.

This is what I do. I give too much for praise. Aren't you jump through that hoop? Oh, well done. We're so good at this. I want it to seem like I'm super vet-S. So now I'm interested in what you're saying, adds, about how this idea that with the medical profession,

there's a lot of emphasis on your academic ability and very little emphasis on your ability to handle what are very testing situations. Yes, exactly. And the reason I left was ultimately, I didn't have the coping mechanism to deal with the bad days at work. And I could deal with the sort of the run-of-the-mill bad days.

When I had an actually terrible, terrible bad day, that was too much for me. And there's no mechanism for looking after the doctors who've had a bad day. Because the culture says that it's just something you have to have to be able to do. I mean, we should say in, this is going to hurt, you mention what it is and it's something that goes catastrophically wrong.

Yes. And to do with the birth. I was the most senior doctor on a labour ward. Yeah. Senior registrar, which one click below consultant. So out of hours, you'll be the most senior pair of hands on the deck. And all we ever want is a healthy mum and a healthy baby. Yeah, and look, I end up neither healthy mum nor healthy baby.

Yeah. And it wasn't my fault and everyone said it wasn't my fault and I believed it wasn't my fault. But when people would say that if you're the most senior doctor on the labour ward, something like that, some big disaster will happen every five or six years. And I realised I couldn't face that kind of thing ever happening to me ever again. And so, look, a bad day at work for me now is... A bad day was this morning.

morning when I arrived outside your house and said, oh, I need a residence parking permit. And you're like, oh, I've got to go upstairs and find one. It's like, yeah, I now live in a very, very, you know, frivolous, trivial existence. Because everything is by definition once, you know, once you've done, once you've done that job. So here's a question. Do you think the doctors that are, that did continue to do that job, the surgeons that do do that job on a regular basis, do you think, you think, they've had to slightly anesthetise themselves to it and to facing mortality on a daily basis and that sense of responsibility. Or do you think they're differently wired?

Yeah, I think it's either one or the other. There's some doctors who can just do it and they are made of the right stuff and they're the ones I think that we should be, you know, populating our wards with it. It's not that they're devoid of empathy, they're just much better at doing all of that. And but on the other hand... And is that to do with, again, like I say, that's just their personality? Different personalities. People got a good in a war situation, for example. Exactly. We're all different people.

And so there's that, but I think they're the minority. Do you think, as you say that it's down to how you are as a person, being able to deal with those life or death situations? But then I suppose if surgeons, if that was more part of the training, let's say, if that was more some, there was more of a focus on that side of things. I think it's crucial. I think the, I think you're spot on that does need to change. I get emails every week from, you know, senior doctors, retired professors, all sorts, saying, I've never told anyone this but, and then telling me their own awful, harrowing stories. So it's that they say they've not told to their, their partners, they're. first-degree relatives, like I didn't, only because I've put my head above the parapet and I've sort of, I did the thing you're not meant to do, which is talk about it. And I think that's something that needs to change because you can't look after your patience if you're not looking after yourself. And you, yeah, you didn't tell, so you're, when you decided to,

this incident happened, and it's really interesting, I mean, I'm sure most people have read Adam's book listening to this. They really haven't. It's a very big country. But I feel, if you haven't read it, you should, because it's an extraordinary book. And it makes, it's one of those, sounds like such a cliche, it makes you laugh and think that it really does. And you don't see the end coming, which is why I'm not going to say too much about it. But I had that sense that, and I know you've talked about this subsequently, that what you didn't realise, but that you sort of had after that terrible incident in surgery, that you had a sort of post-traumatic stress disorder

that you didn't realise. Yeah, no, absolutely. I don't know if it was actually PTSD because I was on holiday at medical school during my psychiatry rotation. But it's certainly... I used to wake up once, twice a week, back in the operating theatre

where it all happened with my pulse going 200 beats a minute. And now I don't. And so that's only changed. since I regularly get up and on stage and just read out that diary entry and I've done my own I've done my own therapy because I mean it's a system with no slack in it obviously the NHS it's never been stretched thinner really it is at the moment in terms of number of you know there's a hundred thousand vacancies in NHS jobs and so there's no slack in the system that says they, oh, maybe you should take a couple of weeks off,

or maybe we should pay for you to speak to someone. So, you know. And do you think, I mean, I know you didn't tell your parents or your partner. I mean, and my parents knew I'd left medicine. What did you tell them about leaving medicine then? What did you say? So I want to try writing. And what was their response?

Well, they thought they'd had a breakdown. And actually, I probably had it. But they were very worried, coming back to wanting the best for your, for your kids. But actually what had happened is I had to leave medicine and writing was the only thing I could think of whatsoever that could be a plan B. But that's what I said

and they didn't find out until my book came out in hard back a year and a half ago. And actually your partner, James didn't know about that incident either. No for half a decade until after it happened. about this most sort of impactful, pivotal day of my life. And what did he say? I think sort of surprised. It's like it's a big thing to have in your, you know, in your background and never have

mentioned. I think lots of people were very disappointed in me for not having, you know, opened up. is totally understandable, but not really amongst medics, because amongst medics, you know, that's fairly, that's fairly normal. If you know, you've got, you know, loads of mates who work in the NHS, you know, a million and a half people work in the NHS, so you can't really not know people. But you've asked them how their day was, it's, yeah, fine, because that's, you know, that's the culture. Yeah, but I suppose from what you're saying to me, I feel maybe that shouldn't be the culture in terms of they should have the option of talking to people.

They should, the culture needs to change and needs to be baked in right from the very start all through medical school. There's evidence for how you deal with bad stuff. Of course there is. The term, it's a slightly weird term, as being the second victim. You know, if you're the doctor or the healthcare profession involved with a very difficult situation, you become a second victim and there's evidence. There's evidence for talking to people. There's evidence for taking time out. There's evidence for mindfulness, for religion, if that's your bag. There's evidence for all sorts of things. There's evidence for tea. But we ignore that evidence, even though every other aspect of a doctor's life is about using evidence to treat people.

And that needs to change, but it's a very big ship to steer. It's funny, isn't it? Because I grew up in a slightly crazy theatrical family where everyone just, you know, when I said I was giving up piano lessons, my mother went, oh, I went into meltdown for three years. So to me, I know this sounds odd, but your sort of family or just that sort of medic, slightly more rational approach to life, I always thought that was incredible. And I always thought, well, imagine being like that. But when you tell me stories like that and after I read your book, you know, it's funny because what your book did was you humanised the medical profession essentially. Yeah, that was the, yeah, that was my sort of weird, if I'd have called the book, you know, made it clear it was a harrowing polemic about the plight of a junior doctor.

I don't think anyone would have read it. But the idea of the doctor being human is something that can get forgotten. You don't want your doctor. to be too human because they need to be absolutely correct. But they are human. They do get sick and they do get sad and they do make mistakes. And I'm one person out of, you know, hundreds who are trying to, you know, sort of bang this gong. And I've been very lucky that my book struck a chord and it means that the, you know,

the million plus people who've read it in this country, you know, next time the doctors come under fire from a government saying they're just being lazy or next time someone's taking a, an axe to the health service budget, we'll maybe sort of see it from an extra point of view. Well, you said something once. I mean, I could lie and say it was an expectation, but I think it was probably on Good Morning Britain or something. But no, you said something once, which I found,

I'd never really thought about this before. And I think it's a very important point, which is that medics are academically, let's be honest, in the top 1%, really, in the country, because you have to be in order to do that, to enter the profession. So they have a choice to those people about what careers they do. They don't have to go into medicine. Mostly they're good at they have sort of mathematical brains,

which means they could go into the city and they don't. Yes. And so it's so interesting that they come under fire and there's a sense. And you think, wow, there is a vocational aspect to it. Yeah, I mean, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the. The book, these are those I'd kept at the time, and never had any intention of showing anyone. And they only saw the light of publishing day

when the junior doctors came under fire from the government. And the line that was spun was the doctors were struggling as though being greedy because it was about money. This is Jeremy Hunt. Yeah, absolutely. And it totally wasn't about that. But the doctors had a very quiet voice. It just seemed like lunacy that, you know,

there are much more efficient ways of converting grade A levels into cold, hard caps. them through a medical degree and then you know six years of university umpteen years on the on the wards becoming a consultant you know when you're in your late 30s early 40s and then and then potentially that you know the the option of private practice after that but I mean if money was your motivation you would not do that you do medicine because you know because you want to help people because without that you just simply simply wouldn't and it was it was just really

heartbreaking hearing on the media the idea that doctors might be in it for the wrong reasons. Yeah. I want to talk a bit about your comedy, Adam, because you got into comedy when you were at medical school, as you were saying, in the sort of rag week tradition. And you enjoyed it, possibly more than medicine. It was my diversion and it continued to be through the writing my pressure release valve. Yeah. For the shit that happens. Yes, I see that.

But, you know, being a doctor is incompatible with, you know, having another job. So, or even much of a, you know, much of a hobby, relatively incompatible with, you know, having sort of normal functional relationships and friendships. And so, you know, that sort of disappeared onto the back burner, inevitably. but it did mean that when the junior doctor crisis happened, I had a way of trying to do my bit, which was to go up to the Edinburgh Festival and hire a basement. So basically I knew I had a bit of an audience

so that 150 people a night for a month, potentially, if it went well, could hear me reading out from my diaries. And then those few thousand people would then, you know, next time round, have a different view, as I say, of what it was like to be a June Jopter. And then through extreme luck, a publisher came along to my show. It's like, I was described Edinburgh as being like the AGM for comedians

because he's a relatively solitary job being a writer or a comedian. And Mark Watson, who's a great comedian, an old pal, came along and his plus one was a publisher, a Piccador, who came up to me afterwards and was like, how much of these diaries have you got? And the answer was, yeah, loads. Loads, but a lot of it's very boring, but it turns out there was just enough to squeeze a book out of it.

Sorry, I'm feeling for Mark Watson now, who brought along, that's like an X factor. When the judges say, I'm really sorry, but your sister is amazing. Mark already is a very successful author. I know, but I'd rather punch you, I'm sorry. Yeah, no, no, sort of is. They're successful, and there's a million.

bestseller, okay? He didn't want you to do that well. None of us did, Adam. Yeah, I know, I know. But that's incredible. But yeah, he was just out with his mate. And then, so it's had to have had a rude, a weird route to market as... I think you're very sensitive

and emotionally literate, I would describe you as. I think you're someone... I know friends tend to call you a lot over any medical thing at all. I mean, I've got... Oh, oh, I feel a bit. I don't know what to do. I've got a spot. I'll call Adam. Well, I mean, it's their own role of the dice.

I've been out the game quite a long time. And we've almost constantly drunk since. So, you know, the phone calls are getting slightly less frequent, but I still still get shown a lot of rashes. Have you ever had to do that for a friend, though, when you've been like, have you had those moments of the phone call saying? I think you mentioned a few of them in your book, don't you? Yeah. I mean, people still, anytime anyone gets pregnant,

they sort of say, is this normal? Is this sort of, I've occasionally fucked it up like accidentally revealing the gender of a baby from a scan that they didn't want to know. But generally it's just part of the lot of a doctor sort of gets... But you are... You gave me some brilliant advice with writing because I wrote a memoir recently and I found it quite difficult. But the thing I found... There's a lot of similarity between the two things we've done. We both talked about from a, you know, from our very personal point of view, the most difficult moment.

in our lives and I was you know I really enjoyed there aren't many people you can who were doing the same doing that so it's really it's really useful for me to to think about how it was to write about that stuff as well but you did say to me because afterwards I found the thing that was really tricky was that period between delivering it and publication as a writer when you're feeling I felt so needy and paranoid and sent there's nothing you can do you mean you've you've you've you've done your exams and you're waiting for the results, you've had the interview, waiting for the, you know, for the job offer. And also that sense of, I don't know if you felt this, but that sense of, you know, there's a brilliant book about writing by this, Anne Lamott, bird by bird, which our mutual friend Jane Goldman got me.

And she says a great thing in it, which is, don't worry about what you say about people. They should have behaved better. Which I really like. But, I mean, neither of our books were sort of slacking people off. But on the other hand, you know, there is that sense. There's that worry and you must have had that with patients. There is. Yeah, that was a huge thing for me. Because I also had the added legal incentive of not going to prison, which is what, you know,

because medical patient confidentiality. So I had to put quite a lot of Vaseline on the lens and a lot of it, by definition, as the doctor, I'm a bit player in someone else's story. It's never my story. So I didn't want anyone, not just from the legal and confidential side of things, but I didn't want upset people and I sort of I blurred a huge amount of my personal stuff because it

wasn't I didn't feel it was just my my story to tell so in fact I wanted to put none of my actual life in there but my editor rightly put back in a lot of the diary inches I'd removed because I thought who's it I thought who cares about me people want to know about the you know the experience of a June doctrine the funny stories and the sad stories, but actually the me side isn't interesting. But obviously she was totally right because you need to invest in someone's journey. You know, it can't just be a sketch show.

Yeah. Which is why I respect you for writing that book, because all the comics I know with the greatest will in the world, sometimes there is a sort of fear, I think, over stuff being real. or not, do you know what you mean? Or not punchline related. And I love that. Lressing people into too much.

You're allowed in this much. And there's a bit in your show, which I want to mention because I saw it at Hannah Smith, Apollo, and I just felt so proud of you. And it has the most, it's such an extraordinary experience and you really have to go and see it because it's hilarious and it makes you laugh and it's sort of so clever and so funny.

And then, again, I'm not going to sort of go into it, but it's, there's a bit at the end which just has people in tears sort of really moved and... Yeah, it's an amazing experience. It's a confidence trick, you know, sort of, there's an hour of me making people much in the same way that the book is. Yeah. You know, my message from the book is delivered through mostly being funny, but that's, that was my hook into both things. And in the show, I lull people into a slight sense of security that they're getting one thing. actually I've got no great desire to be on stage. I don't live for the applause.

I don't want to be famous. Do you not? No, I don't get the buzz that you're meant to. And that's why I went towards, you know, I've spent the last eight, nine years working, you know, on the side of the camera that no one, no one sees. As a writer. And you're writing at the moment, I don't know if you're allowed to say this.

Are we allowed to say that you're writing an adaptation? Oh yeah, no, that's an accepted fact I believe. So yeah, for BBC too. And this is going to hurt. This is going to hurt. So that's been my preferred thing. So I don't have this drive to be like, oh, 4,000 people.

It's, I don't, I don't need to. I'm not very Hallow Wembley. But the reason that I'm doing this now sort of quite enormous tour, and I'm enjoying it, is because I get to look people in the whites of their eyes and, you know, to tell them from the heart about, you know, what it actually means to be a doctor on the toll that it takes on human beings at home and at work. And I leave the stage thinking that I've done a, not that I've done a useful thing,

but because nothing can ever compare to, you know, to going onto a labour ward and, you know, certainly a baby's life. But I can convince myself that I'm playing. I can convince myself that I'm, you know, there's a purpose to what I'm doing. The arts obviously have huge value, but sort of, I'm enjoying it for a slightly sort of wanky-worthy reason. I've got to be honest, you certainly made me think about the NHS and doctors in a different way, because I think I've always made that assumption that, you know, I used to joke with a friend of mine whose dad was an anaesthetist, and I'd say, oh, there you go, being all anaesthetist about it. You know, mean whenever he was sort of unfeeling or rational or logical.

But that's the defence mechanism that you put up. Because if you don't have that, you can't cope. Right. If you think about, if you take all of this home and actually think about all of these cases, you would collapse. Is anesthetist in some ways? I just find that terrifying. There's so many, there's so many different specialties on the front line. And this sine wave of the ups and downs is always present. It's never totally flat. You might think like, oh, dermatology, Derma Holiday, we used to call it. sort of sit down at your nice desk, cup of coffee, see a rash.

Dermatology, if you say that's just a mole, off you go. And you send someone home with a, you know, a malignant melanoma. You've killed that patient. And this is why I've got this, this is why this dark sense of humour develops because there's no part of medicine that you're immune from the terrible stuff happening. You understand that, and it's brilliant that you can communicate that, it must be hard when you're in that profession and you've got no perspective on it.

Yeah, it is. And in retrospect, my diary was therapy and I didn't realise that until I looked back at it afterwards. I was like, oh, that's, it isn't just that I was, it was probably partly, but it's not just that I was a sort of sort of wannabe, low rent David Tadaris, diarist.

I was sort of, it was, it was what I had to get through the bad days. I wanted to ask you, Adam, about, you're with your, you and your partner, James, have been together a while now. And I think you've got a really lovely relationship. And I need your medical bone to open the gate to get to the cafe. Because I think we need your site. You've got A-level maths, haven't you?

I think that should open. No, yeah. There we go. Push. Well, here's my question. What's the secret to a good relationship? Oh, I don't know. I think we've, we have a shared sense of huge.

humour and I think... A lot of people say that. And yeah, I guess, I mean it's sort of, we're sort of, you know, on the face of it, quite different people, but... Do you get angry at them? I can't imagine you ever losing your temper. You're very calm, gentle person. I try, I'm not sort of being a junior doctor, sort of in a crisis, you sort of, you

revert to whether it was an emotional crisis or a, you know, sort of, you know, a car accident, whatever is you just sort of become slightly practical. So it's like you know you're talking about your sort of your horrendous personal experiences, blunting your reactions to, you know, to other life things that happen subsequently. I've, you know, it's sort of, I suspect that being a junior doctor has changed my response to crises of various levels. But, you know, we don't sort of, yeah, do you cry at? Do I cry? I'm not, no. Not a very good cryer, no. Should I? No. I... When did you last cry?

I cry. This is, so like I'll, I don't cry at funerals, but I do cry at the movies. And I just involuntarily sort of tear up. But I think it's the music, and I know this, because a couple of months ago, James was watching something on the telly, and I was working, and I sort of came down to get a cup of tea or something, and I was walking down the stairs, and the music was playing in the emotional part of a movie. I didn't even know what it was, and hadn't watched any of, and I just found myself being a bit choked. I was like, oh, all right, is that one?

So I've got some bit of bad wiring somewhere, but... I understand that. But, I don't know, it makes me sound... awful that that happened and I don't actually quite at sad events. I had Al Murray on this podcast not long ago and I said do you cry out? She's ex-amous Al-Murray. Yes and he said, I'm capable of being lacrimose at times. Which I thought was quite a doctor's answer.

Yeah, exactly. Very practical. Oh, well we need to, we should let you head off now, ads. But have you enjoyed your walk with Archie? I mean, I've hugely enjoyed meeting Archie. I'm afraid it's a no from me. He's an absolute cutie, isn't he? He is, we're going to say, very lively. And for future guests, dogless guests,

he's probably at the top end of how bouncy a dog can be. Do you know what, I'm going to go exuberant? Exuberant, yeah. Okay, he's flamboyant. He's the Freddie Mercury of the dog world. He is, he is. I really hope you enjoyed listening to that, and do remember to rate review and subscribe on iTunes.

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