[[quoteright:350:[[VideoGame/TeamFortress2 http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/meet_the_medic_surgery_1705.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:"Anyvay, zat's how I lost my medical license."]]
->'''Heavy''': ''"[[LampshadeHanging Should I be awake for this?]]"''\\
'''Medic''': ''"[[HerrDoktor Vell]], no. But as long as you are, [[CrossesTheLineTwice would you mind holding your rib cage open a bit?]]"''
-->-- ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'', [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36lSzUMBJnc "Meet the Medic"]]

Surgeries are dangerous and delicate things. There's a reason why "[[ThisAintRocketSurgery brain surgeon]]" is slang for "genius"- they have to spend hours carefully maneuvering minute instruments and any mistake can cost their patient's life [[FateWorseThanDeath or worse]].

Naturally, expect this aspect of medicine to be thrown away in the name of [[RuleOfFunny comedy]]: the nurse will give the surgeon a [[DropTheHammer hammer]] and he'll immediately proceed to whack away violently, then an [[AnAxeToGrind axe]] and proceed to hack away, then a [[ThisIsADrill drill]], then a [[ChainsawGood chainsaw]], then [[NoodleImplements an eggbeater]], then...

If anaesthesia is administered, it's either by a [[TapOnTheHead sledgehammer to the head]] or [[DrFeelgood copious amounts of booze]]. For an extra gag, the booze may turn out to be [[DrunkenMaster for the surgeon]].

[[TakeOurWordForIt Don't expect to see]] what's [[GoryDiscretionShot going on with the patient]] during the operation, or [[RuleOfFunny an explanation]] as to why piercing his head is going to help with his HiccupHijinks, but he'll likely step away from the operation room completely healthy and his medical problem will be gone (or at least, he won't be horribly mutilated). However, agonised screaming and [[CameraAbuse blood splattering across the screen]] are par for the course.

More rarely, this ''can'' also be PlayedForDrama. The trope might be justified if the surgery takes place before the 20th century, for instance, or under field conditions, or ''both'' (see Real Life). Whatever the reason, it's never pretty-- ''pray'' they'll go for a DiscretionShot.

Common culprits for the comedy version are the {{Morally Ambiguous Doctor|ate}}, MadDoctor, or DepravedDentist, while the dramatic version will more likely involve TheMedic or the FrontierDoctor. A BackAlleyDoctor might be used for either.

Compare with WorstAid.

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!!Examples

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Anime]]
* In ''Anime/AfroSamurai'', when [[spoiler: Jinno is turned into a cyborg]]. This might qualify as BlackComedy, or the cartoonish nature of the scene might make it worse.
* ''Batting Female Doctor Saori'' is about a female doctor[[note]]named Saori[[/note]] who heals her patients by hitting them. With a baseball bat. [[PunchedAcrossTheRoom Usually across the room]]. Not only that, she can repair cars, tame panthers and win baseball games with her skill.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Board Games]]
* The board game ''Operation'', naturally. The game's implication is made obvious during commercials.
** Don't be absurd. [[VideoGameCrueltyPunishment If you do it badly, you lose the game.]]
** Players who are already losing anyway will take their frustration out on the patient, who's already screaming anyway.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comics]]
* In ''LibertyMeadows'', Frank tries to be professional, but occasionally falls into this trope, usually helped along by keeping Leslie (who has had ''no'' medical training) as his assistant. One notable example is when Frank is performing an operation, but has no anesthesia thanks to budget cuts. When he asks what painkillers they have left, Leslie offers up a six-pack of beer and a copy of James Joyce's ''Ulysses''. When Frank opts to use the latter, Leslie gets several sentences in before everyone (Frank included) falls asleep from boredom. The next comic shows that the patient has begun to wake up mid-surgery, so Leslie is preparing to knock him out with a sledgehammer.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Film]]
* ''Film/MontyPythonsTheMeaningOfLife'' features two "surgeons" forcibly harvesting organs from a man just because he's got an organ donor card. Mostly offscreen but obviously Meat Grinder Surgery.
-->'''Man:''' "Mr. Jones? We've come for you liver."
-->'''Mr. Jones:''' "But I'm using it right now."
* This trope is common in Film/TheThreeStooges shorts, especially the hammer anesthetic.
* ''Film/StarTrekIVTheVoyageHome'' presents 1980's medicine as this, from the perspective of 23rd century starfleet surgeon Dr. Leonard "Bones" [=McCoy=], along with a subplot to rescue Chekhov from such ''primitive'' attempts at medicine.
* PlayedForDrama in ''Saw III'': Lynn Denlon uses a power drill and small circular saw to cut away a piece of Jigsaw's skull and relieve the pressure on his brain.
** This one's kind of a subversion in that that's pretty much the actual method used by currently practicing, 1st World trained surgeons to relieve brain swelling.
* In ''Film/IronMan'', Tony Stark is given major thoracic surgery in a cave with a box of scraps. He wakes up with a car battery wired into his chest. Justified as the Ten Rings are hardly going to let the guy they just abducted go to a hospital.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* Standard medical practice in ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'''s Ankh-Morpork involves hitting the patient over the head with a hammer to anesthetize them. The only real doctor in the city (Dr. Lawn from ''Discworld/NightWatch'') is seen as crazy for worrying about things like sanitation, sterilization, and the survival of his patients... until Sam Vimes rewarded him for [[spoiler: saving his wife and newborn son]] by helping him open his own hospital. This is one of the reasons that, prior to ''Night Watch'', the most employed physician in the city was "Doughnut Jimmy" Folsom, a horse vet. The reasoning goes, a good racehorse is expensive and a big earner, so Jimmy could choose between keeping his patients alive or having the last words he hear be something like "Da boss is ''very'' unhappy."
** Ankh-Morpork is also the home of the the delightful new form of medicine known as [[http://wiki.lspace.org/wiki/Retrophrenology "retrophrenology"]].
* Eric Flint's book ''[[Literature/TrailOfGlory 1812: The Rivers of War]]'' provides an excellent example of this, which was TruthInTelevision at the time. The patient denies the issued anaestetic, which is raw Navy rum (he has a bottle of emergency laudanum packed away, which he uses), but he knows that refusing the anaesthetic the surgeon tried to give him would be good for his reputation regardless. Also, a quote:
--> "Few lumberjacks wielded a saw as vigorously as an Army surgeon after a major battle."
* The ''Literature/{{Mash}}'' surgeons referred to what they were doing as "meatball surgery" -- doing quick (but hopefully not too dirty) surgery, keeping the patient alive but leaving follow-ups to the better-equipped Evac hospitals. Naturally, many of the plots involved the protagonists trying to avert or subvert this trope, but it still arose from time to time.
--> '''Hawkeye:''' Our general attitude around here is that we want to play par surgery on this course. Par is a live patient. We're not sweet swingers, and if we've gotta kick it in with our knees to get a par that's how we do it.
* This trope is zig-zagged in the ''{{Temeraire}}'' series. Human medical treatment is standard for the NapoleonicWars, however the tools used by dragon surgeons could easily pass for melee weapons... but then given the [[IncrediblyLamePun scale]] of their patients most of the injuries that can be treated by human physicians are relatively superficial.
* Touched upon in the Creator/TomClancy novel ''[[Literature/JackRyan Without Remorse]]'', whose protagonist has some rather ugly scars from "meatball surgery" of the sort touched upon in the entry for ''M*A*S*H'' above.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live Action TV]]
* This type was used quite a bit in ''Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus''.
** Gumby [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M68GeL8PafE&feature=related Brain Surgury]]
* In ''TheMuppetShow'', Rowlf occasionally gets to begin such an operation in the "Veterinarian's Hospital" sketches.
* Comes up in ''{{Sharpe}}'' once or twice, set as it is in the Napoleonic Wars. Sharpe himself removes a man's shattered arm with a sword (it's easier to stop the bleeding from one large wound than lots of little ones) and Harper pulls out one of his own teeth with pliers.
* The events of one episode of StargateAtlantis forced Dr. Keller perform brain surgery on [=McKay=] with a power drill in a dank cave.
* One StargateSG1 episode involved Colonel Mitchell (who is NOT a doctor) performing surgery on a severely injured Carter while hiding out from bad guys.
* Surgery in ''Series/{{Mash}}'' is not as bad as this trope but the various characters regard it that way since it is a lot rougher than it would be in a proper hospital. The general term used in the show is "Meatball Surgery". Of course, being a frontline hospital unit, their jobs are to simply to save the patient and make sure they stay alive long enough to get sent to a rear area hospital for proper treatment.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Music]]
* This video for [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyrXy1TUDlw Aberinkula]] by the Mars Volta
* The video for [[Music/WeirdAlYankovic Weird Al's]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=notKtAgfwDA Like A Surgeon]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Newspaper Comics]]
* ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'' makes carving a pumpkin sound like this:
-->'''Calvin''': OK, JACK, TIME FOR YOUR LOBOTOMY!! Hand me a big spoon, will you, Hobbes?\\
'''Hobbes''': Ugh! No anesthetic even.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* This trope is used in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' by Ork doctors, the painboyz (also known as Doks, or Mad Doks). Some don't even bother to use anesthetic at all, preferring to have their patient squirming and kicking so they know he's still alive. Orks are so inhumanly tough that they not only survive, but usually fully recover very quickly.
-->'''[[DawnOfWar Mad Dok:]]''' Now this is gonna 'urt ''a lot'' but you'll be bettah, you'll see!...
* ''MagicTheGathering'' has the Goblin Chirurgeon ("Chirurgeon" is a middle English term for surgeon), who kills live goblins to make sure other creatures can live. One art has one sawing away at a goblin's leg to give to another goblin who has lost theirs. The goblin getting his leg hacked off is awake at the time.
** Also implied by another Goblin in Goblin Medics, specifically in its flavor text, a perversion of the Hippocratic Oath: "First, do some harm."
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Theater]]
* A skit frequently used at summer camps is all about this, with everyone standing behind a sheet so only the shadows can be seen. There are several variations depending on who is performing it and where, but the one this troper saw included the following:
** The doctors (a normal stethoscope/lab coat doctor and a tribal witch-doctor) initially stated that neither had performed surgery before. It was clear that they had no idea what they were doing.
** The patient was knocked out by being [[TapOnTheHead hit over the head]] with a sledgehammer and woken up by being hit again.
** The [[ChainsawGood chainsaw]]-as-surgical-instrument subtrope made an appearance.
** The doctors accidentally removed the patient's heart, which bounced around for a few seconds and then exploded.
** Despite the doctors making a huge mess and accomplishing nothing, the patient exclaimed, "I feel much better now!" at the end.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* The flash game AmateurSurgeon is based all around this since the main character is a BackAlleyDoctor with a talent for improvising. Why use a scalpel when you have a pizza cutter? Lighters can cauterize pretty well, can't they? Surely a [[ChainsawGood Chainsaw]] would make for a perfect bonesaw, right?
* The ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' video ''[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36lSzUMBJnc Meet the Medic]]''. Roughly half the video involves the RED Medic performing surgery on the Heavy, in a procedure involving a device ([[spoiler:which, as it turns out, enables the Übercharge in-game]]) getting shoved onto Heavy's still-beating heart, said heart ''exploding'' and being replaced with a "Mega　Baboon" heart, and Medic pushing the organ into the Heavy's chest cavity so hard he breaks off a rib. All while the Heavy is awake, mind you.
** Not to mention he allows his pet doves to roam the room during operations. [[NamedAfterSomebodyFamous Archimedes]], pictured above, even likes to hang out inside patients' ribcages. The only thing the Medic finds objectionable about this is that "It's filthy in there!".
** Mind you, the Medic's nigh-magical Medigun, plus the CartoonPhysics of the ''Team Fortress 2'' universe pretty much allows him to throw caution out the window.
** The Medic's idea of "proper surgical garb" is whatever he happens to be wearing at the time. In ''Meet The Medic'', "surgical garb" is a sweater vest and shirt. Oddly enough, he only puts on a labcoat and gloves when he's preparing for battle.
* A non-comedic example occurs in ''[[FirstEncounterAssaultRecon FEAR 2: Project Origin]]'', while [[PlayerCharacter Michael Beckett]] is undergoing surgery to awaken his Harbinger powers, he has a hallucination in which demonic creatures in surgical uniforms claw and hack at his flesh.
* Doctor Zed in ''Videogame/{{Borderlands 2}}'' asks the protagonists (crazy gun-toting badasses) to assist in an operation to mend a captured Hyperion engineer's lungs; asking the player to carefully make a small incision below the sternum. Pressing the button to "Perform surgery" causes you to stab the man in the chest with a pickaxe or punch his chest open.
-->Zed: ''Eh, close enough''
** He wasn't any better in the first game. The first time players see him, Zed's giving a malevolent look to a fellow how is either not long for the world or already expired...and his introduction pauses juuust as he's about to violently swing a buzz axe (a buzz saw cross bred with a fire axe, and the main weapon of the game's Psycho enemies) and carve his victim like an ugly, graying turkey. It's heavily implied that Zed's idea of general medical care isn't any better and outright explicit that he's not even a doctor, especially after he sends players out on a FetchQuest to repair the medical vending machine.
-->'''Zed:''' Who needs a ''real'' doctor when you got my machines and their scary needles?
* The freeware Flash ''[[http://jayisgames.com/tag/darkcut Dark Cut]]'' series features this trope as a deliberate DarkerAndEdgier version of ''VideoGame/TraumaCenter''. Pretty much every operation is a medieval, battlefield, or otherwise non-standard surgery center PlayedForDrama with lots of grit and blood and creepiness.
* The online game ''VideoGame/SurgeonSimulator2013'' can be described as "''{{QWOP}}'' gets his medical license". And it is just as darkly hilarious as it sounds.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* Used in ''WesternAnimation/CowAndChicken'' for plastic surgery during a plastic surgery contest.
* Also used for ''amateur'' plastic surgery in the ''WesternAnimation/AquaTeenHungerForce'' episode "Super Model".
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' -- Professor Farnsworth decides the best way to carry out Bender's delicate gender reassignment is with a sledgehammer. Yeah, he's a robot, but ''a sledgehammer''.
** This is also what happens when you see Zoidberg for treatment. Although it's shown that he's actually a very good doctor when it comes to BizarreAlienBiology, it's just that, unfortunately, ''human'' anatomy is something he doesn't have nailed down just yet.
* Wilbur in ''Disney/TheRescuersDownUnder'' is threatened with MeatgrinderSurgery by a group of mice, before he decides he feels fine and decides to check out early.
* [[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons Dr. Nick Riviera]] is basically the living avatar of this trope. He was once brought before a malpractice committee for over 100 heinous charges, including performing surgery with a knife and fork from a seafood restaurant ("But I cleaned them with my napkin!")
** Moe is also revealed to be an unlicensed and unhygienic surgeon in one episode.
* Kenny gets one of these in ''WesternAnimation/SouthParkBiggerLongerAndUncut'', after his attempt to set his fart on fire literally backfires. They end up replacing his heart with a baked potato.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* Brain surgery involves drilling a hole in someone's head. The drill is pretty much the same as the one you use at home, just a little more fancy, and a '''lot''' more expensive. At least it looks and acts mostly the same.
* Amputating limbs is done with electric saw. It also looks and acts a lot like a regular hand tool.
** There's a reason why in times past, one common nickname for a doctor was "sawbones"
* A few prehistoric skulls have been found with [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trepanation trepanations]], or holes cut through the skull. This was of course done with primitive implements, yet the bones show signs of long-term healing, which means the patient survived the surgery.
* Battlefield surgery until surprisingly recently could be like this. They would amputate with a saw and cauterize with a branding iron [[FateWorseThanDeath with no anesthetic]] other than rum and opium. Which wasn't always given.
** This is a popular myth, but not exactly based in historical fact. Ether was available as early as TheAmericanCivilWar, and the use of forceps to tie off the blood vessels and arteries (invented, among other places, in Ancient Egypt) had been rediscovered in the 1600s - not that, of course, without the sterilisation of medical instruments being a given, it helped survival rates much. Battlefield surgery wasn't ''pretty'', but it wasn't "biting the bullet" either. It was the recovery process in the hospitals that was more likely to kill you, actually, as you waited around to see if you got gangrene or not and tried not to catch anything from the sick and wounded people all around you.
* The removal of wisdom teeth involves a tool that looks very much like a stainless-steel chisel.
** The same chisel is used to drain tooth abscesses, under anesthesia. The patient [[{{Squick}} can hear it scraping the jawbone]].
* Orthopedic surgery (in layman's terms, ''skeletal'' surgery) can appear this way, with the use of power tools, hand tools, and hardware similar to those seen in a workshop (although sterile and much more expensive), as well as the use of what appears to be strenuous amounts of physical pulling and tugging by surgical staff (to ensure proper alignment of joints and bones, etc.). For this reason, it is said that an orthopedic surgeon must be as strong as an ox, and TWICE as smart!
[[/folder]]

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