Debra Millar. Photo / Supplied
Author Debra Millar tells Eleanor Black what she's reading
In recent years I've developed something of an obsession for reading medical memoirs. I'm not entirely sure why. My mother worked for a series of doctors, I have a sister who is a nurse and a niece who is a GP and my daughter is now at medical school. But apart from childbirth, my only hospital stay was a brief visit with appendicitis, aged 9. I'm not a hypochondriac and I'm no ambulance-chaser.
But I find there is something entirely consuming about venturing along the corridors of a busy hospital or entering an operating theatre with a well-written medical memoir as your guide. For me, it's the equivalent of reading crime fiction; an intriguing insight into the extremes of human behaviour with a bit of ghastliness sometimes thrown in on the side.
I'm not sure why I hadn't read Adam Kay's much-lauded book This is Going to Hurt before now. It's the perfect entry-level medical memoir — searingly funny, just a little bit gruesome and an eye-popping insight to the extreme hours and working conditions junior doctors endure. When I told a friend that my daughter had decided to study medicine, she repeated what her junior doctor daughter had told her: 'If she can think of anything else that she'd rather do, she should sign up for it now.' (I'm pleased to report that so far my daughter is completely happy with her choice.)
Adam Kay walked away from a promising career in obstetrics and gynaecology after a baby died but then drew on his frequently hilarious and sometimes touchingly tender personal diaries to write This is Going to Hurt. It's the kind of book you can consume in a weekend or dip in and out of while you have another more substantial book on the go. For me, it has plugged a gap during a particularly frantic period of work, launching my own book, Homesteads: The Story of New Zealand's Grand Country Houses and publishing a couple of big books with upwards of 500 references each.
My husband kept asking me why I was smiling while reading it. In part, it was because of Kay's often macabre humour but now that I've finished reading it, I realise that I am missing joining Kay on his ward rounds. I think I was beaming simply because I enjoyed being in the company of Kay and his constantly changing cast of characters. For now, though, it's as close to a hospital bed as I hope to get.
Homesteads: The Story of New Zealand's Grand Country Houses by Debra Millar, photographs by Jane Ussher (Point Publishing, $75) is out now.