In the first ten minutes of watching "Pain Is Inevitable," I thought it would be a typical British comedy.
The obstetrician and gynecologist played by Ben Weschaud is late for work.
The reason was that he was asleep in the car.
He found a pregnant woman in the hospital's parking lot.
The situation was very dangerous, so he chose...
Take her directly to the employee elevator.
That is, the kind of elevator that transports goods, has no doors, and does not stop at all.
Maternity: It turns out that I worked hard and ran to the hospital to give birth, just to jump off the elevator?!
By the sixth minute, we saw Ben Weshao naked.
In the seventh minute, he even discussed the emergency situation with his boss in a completely naked state.
I have to say that the director of this drama really understands: if you hire a star, how to maximize his value.
So, how is a day as an obstetrician and gynecologist constituted?
First of all, you will see a lot of female organs.
You can even be splashed with all kinds of bodily fluids at any time.
You have to deal with all kinds of grumpy, anxious mothers.
There are also many, many children to be delivered.
Of course, you will meet all kinds of strange people, for example, some mothers are racist.
There are also mothers who like to eat placenta.
There's always a timid rookie doctor behind you.
So part of your job is to clean up the mess for her.
You look very serious, professional, and sacrosanct.
But you can actually do all sorts of things that go out of the ordinary, including but not limited to answering the phone on the operating table and stitching up an ugly scar on a patient's tattoo.
In the end, you are not only a male obstetrician and gynecologist.
Still a gay man.
Of course, responsibly, if "Pain Is Inevitable" only made these contents...
It is absolutely impossible to get a Douban score of 9.4.
"Pain Is Inevitable" is one of the most watched episodes of the month.
Its card division is quite top-notch.
The lead actor is Ben Weshao, one of the directors Lucy Forbes's masterpiece is "Go to His*'s World", and the story is adapted from the British bestseller "Absolute Laughter and Spray abandoned doctor's journal".
As you can tell from the title, this is a hilarious, poisonous tongue, and a big rotten comedy.
To what extent is the book a bestseller? In half a year, 1 million copies were sold, and on the day of publication, the British Amazon network was paralyzed for 3 hours, and later even alarmed the British Ministry of Health.
More dramatically, the author, Adam S. Kai himself was a former obstetrician and gynecologist and spent six years from an intern to deputy chief physician.
When the daughter-in-law became a mother-in-law... He quit his job and became a comedian instead.
From the perspective of a bystander, you must feel that this is a passage, right?
It is not easy to be the deputy chief physician, the good son of other people's family, can even say that he resigns?!
But after watching "Pain Is Inevitable", perhaps to some extent, you will understand his decision.
Because being an obstetrician and gynecologist is really hard.
Compared with the original work, the biggest difference between "Pain Inevitable" is that:
this. finish. whole. No. be. One. division. enjoy. drama.
On the contrary, it is very mournful, very realistic, and very cruel.
Most medical dramas of the same kind are mainly "everyday".
But from the very beginning of the show, the protagonist is thrown into a huge dilemma.
In the second half of the first episode, the male protagonist Adam does not diagnose a pregnant woman's preeclampsia due to a momentary misjudgment.
As a result, the fetus is only 25 weeks old and must undergo a caesarean section.
The operation was also extremely dangerous, and at one point he suffered heavy bleeding, and his whole body nearly collapsed, thinking that the mother was going to die at his hands.
Although the boss appeared in time to save the life of the mother and son, this incident gave Adam a huge psychological shadow.
After that, when he met new patients, his mind was always flashing back and forth, repeating the nightmarish scene of the time: he could not reconcile with himself.
He was too busy to drink water, eat, mingle with lovers, and chat with colleagues.
But he always went to the neonatology department alone, talking to himself in the incubator of the surviving baby.
This incident also had a huge impact on his career.
He was met with anonymous complaints from patients and colleagues, and eventually got into a lawyer and went to court.
This young and talented doctor is likely to lose his future.
Haunted.
It's hard to find a perfect translation in the Chinese, but it seems that this word best sums up Adam's state of mind in the show.
This mistake haunted him almost for a whole season.
Every time he thought the problem had been solved, when he thought his life could turn the page, it would reappear, continue to drag him, and fall into the abyss again.
Behind this is the terrible thing about the profession of doctors.
On the surface, they are faced with endless repetition.
Countless mothers, countless babies, similar signs, the same disease...
However, if there is any mistake, they will be saddled with a human life.
Adam may not have been able to count how many mothers he had saved, how many newborns he had helped, and come safely into the world.
But he will always remember that he once nearly killed a mother and son.
One of the great advantages of British dramas is that they are short and concise.
The same is true of "Pain Is Inevitable", which is quite comprehensive in just seven episodes, allowing us to see every aspect of obstetrics and gynecology.
There are thrilling surgeries and complex doctor-patient relationships.
Of course, there are also rather delicate workplace relationships.
When Adam was exhausted in the hospital, his boss, Mr. Lockhart has become a daughter-in-law, drives a luxury car, goes abroad on vacation, and works part-time in a private hospital with a high salary.
And when the patient files a complaint with the hospital, although the other party complains about the whole hospital, or even the entire unreasonable medical system...
But only one doctor will be pushed out to carry the pot.
Unfortunately, in this story, this person is the protagonist Adam.
The day before he was Lockhart's proud protégé, the next day he was an outcast.
What about colleagues?
You think they're fighting side by side in the same hospital and should build a deep camaraderie.
But the truth is that under great pressure, everyone becomes anxious, irritable, and irritable. And they are always accusing, complaining, and sneering at each other.
After all, there are always endless emergency departments and patients who can't be saved.
How can we help each other when we are too busy to take care of ourselves?
"Inevitable Pain" does set up a very interesting set of control relationships.
The male protagonist, Adam, is a white male.
Born into an elite family, his ancestors have been doctors for three generations, and his career prospects are bright, and he is likely to become the successor of his boss.
But unveiling these glamorous appearances, he is more like a defector of the elite.
On the one hand, his former classmates were richer than he was: doctors of the same level as him almost all went to private hospitals, paid high salaries, and lived a decent life.
He was the only one who was still exhausted in public hospitals, but earned a meager salary.
Worse, he was gay.
His parents were reluctant to accept this, and he was ashamed to come out to his colleagues at the hospital.
He was reluctant to confess himself to others.
In the final analysis, it is only because, deep down in his heart, he cannot identify with such a self.
He is torn apart: the success of the dogma of society, and the ideals that the heart truly pursues, always point to two diametrically opposed paths.
The other protagonist of the story, Shruti, a newcomer to the hospital, is an Asian woman.
She and Adamy, the relationship between seniors and newcomers, are also a very different control group.
She came from a poor immigrant family and had to work very hard and fight all the way to get such a job in a public hospital.
The job, which was "looked down upon" by Adam's class, was already a shining lintel for her.
But as a newcomer, she lives at the bottom of the hospital pyramid; as an Asian, she is often wearing colored glasses by patients.
She works during the day, memorizes and prepares for exams at night, and doesn't even have time to sleep.
Many people say that in a high-pressure workplace environment, you can grow quickly.
Just look at Shruti and you're too optimistic: a truly high-pressure environment will only leave you crushed and squeezed dry.
Like a tomato on a board, it burst open most completely.
Shruti could have had a brighter future: she was a wonderful, strong woman who changed her destiny with her own efforts. She can be an example in a success textbook.
But the hospital eventually killed her growing space.
She turned into a tragic tragedy.
Adam and Shruti, on the other hand, actually have a lot in common.
They are all excellent and have a very good level of business.
We know that every Adam's past is probably Shruti.
Most importantly, they are also likely to be the softest-hearted people in this hospital.
Shruti will empathize with a wife who has been abused, and Adam will find a way to find a psychologist for a potentially abused teenage girl.
In their eyes, the patient is not just an organ, a body, a job. The patient is still a "person" who cares about whether each individual will be treated or not.
They're not so sophisticated, they haven't let themselves go and become a cog in the health care system.
But what is even more tragic is that such two people have not become friends.
In the beginning, I did think that Adam and Shruti would become the ones who would be friends with each other— and when everyone turned a blind eye to Shruti, only Adam wanted to give her a chance to get on the operating table.
In a sense, Adam is Shruti's teacher and confidant.
But looking back, the busy work and the high-pressure system pushed the two people farther and farther.
Adam was overwhelmed by his complaints, and Shruti was too busy with exams, they were too busy, tired, and self-enclosed to take care of anyone else.
In the end, their fate also went down two diametrically opposed paths.
At this level, in fact, it can also be said that "Pain Is Inevitable" is the most realistic and cruel workplace drama.
It allows you to see how the internal friction in the workplace is really happening.
Every newcomer, when he first steps into his post, is just as hopeful about the future as Shruti.
But then she found that her parents' expectations of her were so high, but she herself was so unimportant.
This industry, this society is just a perpetual motion machine, and she is always a screw, always doing repetitive and meaningless things, she has no way to create value, let alone find her own value.
When she finally plucked up the courage to open her heart and go to consult with her trusted predecessors, the other party said coldly: Are you sure you can do this? I can't give you any comfort, because being a doctor is like that. Keep doing it, and the future will only get worse.
No one could help her. No one could answer her doubts.
And Shruti's brightest future is only Adam.
"Seemingly" gained a foothold in the hospital, "seemingly" appreciated by his superiors, with a stable partner and clear room for promotion.
Just "seemingly".
A mistake, a complaint, can ruin his future.
Even more frightening than that was how lonely and helpless he was.
Adam had no friends.
His trusted colleague said to him very bluntly: You are too arrogant, you think you are the smartest person, but you are just a burden.
Nor could he have had love.
He thought he had it, but it was just an illusion.
Because he doesn't even have an ego.
He works 97 hours a week and spends all his life occupied by patients, emergencies and emergencies. He'll be on every date, every important dinner... Even late for your own engagement dinner.
He is always apologizing to his family, friends, and lovers, but perhaps the person he should apologize to the most is himself.
He was doomed to not being able to be a qualified partner because he didn't even love himself.
If so, why continue?
Knowing that the health care system is unreasonable.
I know that in such a large and irrational system, man's existence is only nothing.
A doctor who enters the profession with ideals will slowly disappear the light in his eyes. Beginning with respect for life, it will only become insensitive in the repetition day after day.
Why continue?
Because, that's the doctor's vocation.
Everyone who stays in this position holds the same conviction: they are willing to sacrifice themselves, not for money, for glory, for ideals, for any "meaning."
Just to save one more life.
The original book of "Pain Is Inevitable" was created in 2006.
But in 2022, after the terrible COVID-19 pandemic, you'll find that the predicament described a decade ago still applies today.
And for this drama, for every doctor, we can only have the highest respect.
At the beginning of the story, in the first scene, Adam delivers a pregnant woman.
In the final scene at the end, he is still delivering babies.
It seems that nothing has changed, and it continues according to the original trajectory.
But that's life.
No chicken soup, no happy ending. As the show's name suggests, from the very beginning, "Pain Inevitable" is just telling you that This is going to hurt.
Being a doctor can be painful.
Giving birth can hurt.
To be born as a human being is to be painful.