History Main / AnatomicallyIgnorantHealing

* The ''Series/StarTrekStrangeNewWorlds'' episode "Charades" has Spock turned into a full human being after an alien AI gets confused by him being a HalfHumanHybrid and prioritizes the human half because the other person with him is also human. Nurse Chapel eventually has to convince the AI to reverse what it's done by explaining that both halves of Spock make him who he is, and simply picking one side is actually healing him.

** The "gas-mask zombie" plague in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E9TheEmptyChild "The Empty Child"]]/[[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E10TheDoctorDances "The Doctor Dances"]] was caused by escaped alien medical nanobots who were trying to heal people. The first human they found was a young boy wearing a gas mask who'd recently been killed by a bomb, and they didn't realize that gas masks weren't a normal part of the human anatomy. So when they started "fixing" humans, they gave them all gas masks and the same injuries the boy had, such as a collapsed chest cavity and a scar on the back of the right hand. The Doctor solves the problem by providing the nanobots with an actual template of what a healthy human looks like, causing them to reverse their work and heal everyone.

* In the unbroadcast ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' pilot "[[Recap/StarTrekS1E0TheCage The Cage]]", and the two-part story it was expanded and re-edited into "[[Recap/StarTrekS1E12TheMenageriePartII The Menagerie]]", the apparently beautiful Vina was actually disfigured and disabled by {{Sufficiently Advanced Alien}}s who healed her after a starship crash without knowing what they were doing. Though in all honesty, even that was probably preferable to death -- as she puts it, 'everything works' because their powers make it so, despite the disfiguration.
-->''"They found me in the wreckage, dying. A lump of flesh. They rebuilt me. Everything works. But they had never seen a human. They had no guide for putting me back together."''

* ''[[VideoGame/ExtrapowerAttackOfDarkforce EXTRAPOWER Attack of Darkforce]]'': This becomes a problem when rescuing Daitoku Igor from the Dark Force Army. He's had a mind control device embedded in his brain, and the team has both a doctor and a biologist on hand. The problem is that they know their way around human physiology, but not alien. With the mind control device as wired into his brain as it is, it's impossible for them to even begin to guess how to extract it without damaging his body. With all the unknowns, someone decides that they might as well just rip it out of his head. [[OhCrap He does]]. Somehow, it works, though Daitoku Igor's memory of time working under Dark Force becomes fuzzy for it.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* ''WesternAnimation/BuzzLightyearOfStarCommand'' XR the robot is who he is because the little green men were off their group mind when they rebuilt him.
* Dr. Zoidberg in ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' has next to no knowledge of human anatomy (the anatomy chart on his office is hung upside-down), so naturally his attempts at surgery usually go horribly wrong. Examples include mixing up Fry's arm and leg (after he himself cut them off during a BloodSport in his native planet) and mutilating the entire crew (including Bender, a robot) in an attempt to cure a simple case of jaundice. It's only through unspecified advances in 30th-century medical technology that none of his failures turn out to be lethal or irreversible. At one point, Zoidberg reattaches Hermes's head, but doesn't realize he's done it backwards.

* The episode "The Ambergris Element" from ''WesternAnimation/StarTrekTheAnimatedSeries'' by Filmation Associates has Captain Kirk and First Officer Spock visit the watery planet Argo. There, they are captured by a giant marine monster, and a second team is dispatched to rescue them. When the two senior officers are found, both have been fitted with gills and webbing between their fingers, and can no longer survive out of the water. The Aquans that inhabit Argo are xenophobic, especially of air-breathers, but took pity on Kirk and Spock, restructuring them to survive in a marine environment. Much of the episode revolves around efforts to undo this process.

* In the unbroadcast ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' pilot "[[Recap/StarTrekS1E0TheCage The Cage]]", and the two-part story it was expanded and re-edited into "[[Recap/StarTrekS1E12TheMenageriePartII The Menagerie]]", the apparently beautiful Vina was actually disfigured and disabled by SufficientlyAdvancedAliens who healed her after a starship crash without knowing what they were doing. Though in all honesty, even that was probably preferable to death - as she puts it, 'everything works' because their powers make it so, despite the disfiguration.

* The fossil Pokémon of ''VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield'' are MixAndMatchCritters ineptly reconstituted from two fossils that were clearly not of the same species, and based on incorrect anatomical structures. For instance, Dracovish is comprised of the head of a dunkleosteus-esque fish attached to the ''tail'' of what appears to be the hind side of a stegosaurian. [[ShownTheirWork This is a reference]], as noted in the 'Real Life' folder below, to attempts by early paleontologists to piece together cohesive skeletons out of excavated fossils, such as the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_Palace_Dinosaurs Crystal Palace Dinosaurs.]]

* ''Literature/{{Starsight}}'': The Detritus medical staff run into this when trying to treat Alanik's injuries. They don't have more than a superficial idea of how UrDail anatomy is supposed to work, so about all they can do is leave Alanik in a coma, keep her intravenously fed and hydrated, and hope she isn't injured in some way that would need surgery to fix.

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[[caption-width-right:350:"... what are [[JokeOftheButt those?]]"]]

* In the unbroadcast ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' pilot "The Cage", and the two-part story it was expanded and re-edited into "The Menagerie", the apparently beautiful Vina was actually disfigured and disabled by SufficientlyAdvancedAliens who healed her after a starship crash without knowing what they were doing. Though in all honesty, even that was probably preferable to death - as she puts it, 'everything works' because their powers make it so, despite the disfiguration.

[[caption-width-right:350:"I thought you were happy. Your tail is wagging!"]]

* Dr. Zoidberg in ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' has next to no knowledge of human anatomy (the anatomy chart on his office is hung upside-down), so naturally his attempts at surgery usually go horribly wrong. Examples include mixing up Fry's arm and leg (after he himself cut them off during a BloodSport in his native planet) and mutilating the entire crew (including Bender, a robot) in an attempt to cure a simple case of jaundice. It's only through unspecified advances in 30th-century medical technology that none of his failures turn out to be lethal or irreversible. Pictured above, Zoidberg reattaches Hermes's head, but doesn't realize he's done it backwards.

[[caption-width-right:350:[[MajorInjuryUnderreaction "What are those?"]]]]

* Dr. Zoidberg in ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' has next to no knowledge of human anatomy (the anatomy chart on his office is hung upside-down), so naturally his attempts at surgery usually go horribly wrong. Examples include mixing up Fry's arm and leg (after he himself cut them off during a BloodSport in his native planet) and mutilating the entire crew (including Bender, a robot) in an attempt to cure a simple case of jaundice. It's only through unspecified advances in 30th-century medical technology that none of his failures turn out to be lethal or irreversible.

%% Image removed per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1654535770073487700
%% Please see thread to discuss a new image.

[[folder:Film -- Live-Action]]

* Dr. Zoidberg in ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' has next to no knowledge of human anatomy (the anatomy chart on his office is hung upside-down), so naturally his attempts at surgery usually go horribly wrong. Examples include mixing up Fry's arm and leg (after he himself cut them off during a BloodSport in his native planet) and mutilating the entire crew (including Bender, a freaking robot!) in an attempt to cure a simple case of jaundice. It's only through unspecified advances in 30th Century medical technology that none of his failures turn out to be lethal or irreversible.

[[quoteright:350:[[ComicBook/FirstIssueSpecial https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/outsiders07_5.jpg]]]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]

* WordOfGod says that Wikus from ''Film/District9'' got sprayed with a {{Nanomachines}} based {{Panacea}} that thought his human biology was a disease, and started turning him into an alien.

''Tenth time's the charm! "''

->''"Okay, THIS is probably where the brain goes, right?''
->''Right?''
->''Tenth time's the charm! "''
-->-- '''Dr. Circula Tori''', ''{{Webcomic/Awful Hospital}}''

* In the ''Literature/ImperialRadch'' series, the StarfishAlien Presger grew ArtificialHuman "Translators" from human remains to act as intermediaries with the Radch. While their early efforts are [[NothingIsScarier left unseen]], it's mentioned that the Presger had a decent practical understanding of how humans are put together -- mostly from taking them apart for fun -- but didn't quite know "what was important." Through trial and error, they managed to produce Translators that look human (most of the time) and are only ''[[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} mentally]]'' in the UncannyValley.

* The YuriGenre series ''Manga/KashimashiGirlMeetsGirl'''s premise is that the {{Bishonen}} lead character, Hazumu, was accidentally mortally wounded when a UFO crashed on top of him, and the aliens, trying to make amends but unfamiliar with human anatomy, [[GenderBender recreated him with a female body]]. However, there is significant evidence Hazumu [[AmbiguousGenderIdentity was actually a transgender girl to begin with]], which has lead some to theorize, far from being ignorance, [[SupernaturallyValidatedTransPerson the aliens were responding to Hazumu's subconscious desire for a female body]].