History Main / OpenHeartDentistry

To a ''very'' limited extent this is justified, as medical doctors in different specialties do all go through basic medical training[[note]]For instance, while you can't expect an eye doctor to conduct a heart or liver transplant, they can be realistically expected to diagnose a heart or epilepsy attack, provide competent first aid, stitch up a wound, assist in childbirth, and so on[[/note]], and some of the skills of one discipline cross over. A bit.[[note]]In general, the more specific a procedure, the more specialized the doctor has to be (for instance, your average veterinarian is perfectly capable of sewing up a superficial wound in the skin, but won't be able to perform surgery for a shattered ankle -- that latter will need an orthopedic surgeon).[[/note]] Oftentimes a subtrope of ClosestThingWeGot, if the dentist's employed in an emergency. Compare BackAlleyDoctor, who may or may not be a licensed practitioner of medicine, but could still save your life if worst comes to worst. Compare/contrast with SuperDoc when you can actually find a genuine doctor who is more like medicine's answer to the OmnidisciplinaryScientist. See also SurgeonsCanDoAutopsiesIfTheyWant.

* Subverted in ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'' with regards to Dr. Knox. Introduced as a medical examiner, it seems that later decisions to visit him for treatment are strange[[labelnote:potentially]]Medical examiners in real life need medical degrees anyway, so any given medical examiner is qualified to work on living people as well as the dead. In fact, in many places around the world, medical examiners are basically first trained as ''pathologists'', which is often seen as one of the hardest and most prestigious branches of medicine, even if they mostly work with the dead.[[/labelnote]]. In fact, Knox had originally been a highly skilled physician but after taking part in medical experiments on captive Ishvalans he felt he was only fit to handle the dead.

** Despite the fact that Mordin Solus is a [[NotThatKindOfDoctor doctorate]] in genetics and biochemistry he still runs a clinic in [[WretchedHive Omega]]. Justified by the fact that his assistants are more or less medically trained and his knowledge of BizarreAlienBiology is a vital part of what keeps the clinic up and running. (Not to mention that he also occasionally [[BadassBookworm shoots the mercs that try to disturb the clinic's work]]).
** Choosing him as the tech specialist during the suicide mission [[spoiler: is also this and WILL get him killed.]]