It makes for an odd and rapid-fire oscillation between the comic and the tragic that has obviously struck a chord with the reading public.

But it’s also full of tense situations that sometimes end in death or disability. You’re rarely a paragraph away from a punchline, and the descriptions err on the side of comic exaggeration. His is a much more personal and, not infrequently, flippant recounting of his experiences. But they’ve tended to focus on the ethical and the surgical, and as a consequence have conformed to a scrupulous style of writing. There have been several notable additions to the genre in recent years, including the brain surgeon Henry Marsh’s Do No Harm. “It’s bad enough finding time to read books I want to read, let alone those of friends of my aunt who decided they’ve an autobiography in them.” “No one’s sent me their book yet,” he says. But as he notes in his book, he prefers it to people asking him to read their scripts. Kay grew fed up of friends and people he met at parties recounting their ailments for his expert attention. This is a trick question, of course, the answer to which no doctor, or even former doctor, ever wants to hear in detail. “How are you?” he asks politely when we meet. Half-cherubic, half devilish, he looks a bit like a clean and sober John Belushi. He’s got a round, serious face that breaks occasionally into shoulder-shaking laughter. Kay is now a 37-year-old comedian and scriptwriter. So it was in that dogged spirit that I eased myself into a vertical setting, waving away the doubts of my wife and concerned looks of strangers in the street, and gingerly made my way to meet Kay at the Wellcome Foundation in Euston, London. Doctors in Kay’s book don’t have time to be ill, because everyone else is sick and they’re busy having to deal with it.

Dr adam kay this is going to hurt