History Main / OpenHeartDentistry

* In the 2007 remake of ''[[310ToYuma 3:10 to Yuma]]'', the posse brings a man who's been shot to Doc Potter for treatment. Potter nervously treats the man, then expresses surprise that he managed so well, since he's actually a veterinarian.

* On ''{{Lost}}'', Jack's appendix is successfully removed by Juliet, a fertility researcher, and Bernard, a dentist.
** The show attempted to justify this trope by having Juliet say that she'd performed a lot of appendectomies during her residency (or something like that). Also, during Jack's operation, Bernard seemed mostly in charge of giving Juliet tools and applying Jack's anesthesia. As a dentist, Bernard would plausibly have more experience with that latter job than most other doctors who aren't surgeons. I leave it up to people who know more about the medical profession than I do to decide how plausible either explanation is.

->"One of the passengers was a veterinarian, it turned out. Five people were wounded, and the doctor was trying to treat them, assisted by a member of the crew. "
An RN surgeon gets helicoptered in:
->"Surgeon Lieutenant Dilk, Doctor."

->"Welcome. I'm afraid my practice is usually limited to horses and dogs," the vet replied at once. "One sucking chest, the other three are belly wounds. One died -- I did my best, but -- "

* When a couple of heavily-armed robbers wearing full kevlar shot up a bank and with the police officers trying to take a hold of the situation, one wounded officer ended up taking refuge in a dentist's office. All the dentist could do was stop the bleeding as best he could and offer painkillers, but this did end up saving the officer's life.
** You mean the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout North Hollywood Shootout]]?
* You know how a psychiatrist gains a professional psychiatry license? A full M.D. is the ''start''. Psychologists are the ones with [=PhDs=], they can get mad when you mix up the titles.
** The main difference in practice is that a Psychiatrist can give medication, a Psychologist can't. Not to imply that either specialty is in any way 'lesser'.
*** But laws in many places are changing so that the prescribing medicine distinction is no longer entirely true.
**** I'd like for you to cite your sources about laws changing in these "places" because the last I checked, prescribing medications was the realm of medicine, because, yes, the knowledge accumulated in the four-to-six years (depending where) of medical school covers so many areas that a post-graduate doctorate cannot. Psychologists with PhDs would require working knowledge of pathology, pharmacology, physiology, biochemistry AT THE VERY LEAST before they can even, as you claim, prescribe medications.

*** Even veterinary technicians (like nurses, but for vets rather than physicians) are supposed to be able to handle surface sutures

* A massive car crash in the ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' anime results in a full Pokemon Center that is forced to send excess Pokemon to a human hospital and a doctor who prescribes superglue for everything he can get away with.

* Averted in one ''[[GlobalGuardiansPBEMUniverse Global Guardians]]'' story: after a titanic battle between the heroes and villains leaves several innocent bystanders injured, Diamond began treating their injuries as best she could with the resources at hand. When a cop asked her what the heck she thought she was doing, and suggested that she wait for the paramedics, she pointedly admitted that, in her Secret Identity, she was a ''trauma surgeon'' and thus knew what she was doing.

* In ''{{Terminator}} 2: Judgment Day'' the Model 101 Terminator is able to deftly perform minor surgery (removal of bullets, etc.) because of his extensive files on human anatomy, which were originally intended to make him a more efficient killer.
** And then in ''Terminator: Salvation'', Kate Connor performs a serious operation near the end of the movie despite having been introduced in T3 as a vet.
---> Although since T4 is set 14 years later, presumably she would've learned from other doctors in that time.
** This is actually an inverse of the standard that physicians make the deadliest warriors. Think about it, they are trained to know the human body, weaknesses in particular. You don't want to get in a fight with a guy that knows the location of major blood vessels, unprotected places to reach those soft internal organs, and/or the easy breaking points in the human skeletal system.

* A massive car crash in the ''{{Pokemon}}'' anime results in a full Pokemon Center that is forced to send excess Pokemon to a human hospital and a doctor who prescribes superglue for everything he can get away with.

* In the Eddie Murphy version of ''DrDolittle'', the title character, a physician, has to operate on a tiger. However, he is regarded by his peers as being reckless, and he never would've gotten as far as he did if the tiger couldn't talk to him.

* When a bunch of robbers shot up a bank and the police officers trying to take a hold of the situation, one wounded officer ended up taking refuge in a dentist's office. All the dentist could do was stop the bleeding as best he could and offer painkillers, but this did end up saving the officer's life.

** The main difference in practice is that a Psychiatrist can give medicine, a Psychologist can't. Not to imply that either specialty is in any way 'lesser'.

* The Adult Swim flash game ''Amateur Surgeon'' seems to center around this. In the first game, Alan Probe is a humble pizza delivery boy who discovers an incredible knack for surgery - but since he's not an actual doctor he has to practice in his van or apartment and merely improvise his surgical tools. The sequel features a half-senile 70 year old Probe called back in the saddle.

* Averted in ''FullMetalAlchemist'' with regards to Dr. Knox. Introduced as a medical examiner, it seems that later decisions to visit him for treatment are strange. In fact, Knox had originally been a highly skilled physician but moved to autopsies after taking part in medical experiments on Ishbalan captives.

* On the ''{{Discworld}}'' people who actually know what they're doing don't go to a doctor for major medical problems, they go to a vet. The logic is thus: If a doctor isn't good, they usually just have a dead patient. But if a vet isn't good, they usually have a rich, furious, mafioso racing horse owner with [[{{Mooks}} lots of hired muscle]] [[YouHaveFailedMe and little patience]] (or worse, if the mafioso in question is [[AllTrollsAreDifferent Chrysophrase the troll]]) to deal with. Hence why horse vet "Doughnut Jimmy" Folsom is regarded as one of the best doctors in the city, despite his tendency to act as if all of his patients are horses, regardless of their actual species. Later in the continuity, they start going to [[TheIgor Igors]]. When someone is trained to stitch together dead body parts into living monsters, stitching someone's lost arm back onto the body it belongs to is much, much easier.

* Shows up in ''{{The Dresden Files}}'' story "Mean Streets": [[spoiler: Waldo Butters, one of Chicago's medical examiners,]] acts as Harry's physician--and it's stated that he's done this a number of times already.

* ''BlackJack''. Operating on animals is the ''least'' outrageous thing this man has done. He's performed successful "surgeries" on ''a supercomputer'' and ''a ghost''.

* The Adult Swim flash game ''Amateur Surgeon'' seems to center around this.