History Main / MeatgrinderSurgery

* Played for [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome Awesomeness]] in ''[[Literature/TheChroniclesOfThomasCovenant Runes Of The Earth]]''. After Stave gets subjected to a NoHoldsBarredBeatdown, Linden has to perform surgery on him to save his life. However, the only "tool" she has is wild magic, which is more normally used for things like blowing up mountains or battling powerful sorcerors. She ''still'' manages to seal Stave's wounds, and he eventually recovers.

* In Le Comiche 2 (an Italian movie from the 90s) there are a couple of examples:
** A man is hospitalized agaist his will. He ends up in a surgery room and mixed up with a female patient waiting for a breast augmentation. Bewildered by the situation, he only realises what is about to happen when the surgeon feels his chest mentioning he will give the patient a "couple of nice boobs". At that point he is already wearing the mask with flowing anaesthetic. In a desperate attempt to avert the operation he screams through the mask and tries to get up. The medical personnel holds him down until he is sound asleep.

* Ashton from ''WebVideo/CriticalRole'' was severely injured during a burglary gone wrong, leaving him with cracks all over his left side and a gaping hole in his skull that exposed a sizable chunk of his brain, a lethal injury even for an [[SiliconBasedLife earth genasi]]. Without access to healing magic and knowing Ashton would die if they did nothing, Milo used molten gold to fill the cracks in his body, and patched the hole in his skull with molten glass. Ashton did survive, but the injury and unprofessional patch job did leave him with chronic pain, memory issues, and blindness in one eye.

%%* The video for [[Music/WeirdAlYankovic Weird Al's]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=notKtAgfwDA Like A Surgeon]]

* Music/WeirdAlYankovich: "Like a Surgeon" stars Al as a comically incompetent surgeon who fumbles organs to the ground, uses medical equipment such as chainsaws and power drills, and eats lunch over the patient's open chest, while his orderlies huff sedative gas and a goldfish winds up in the IV.

* "Dr. Sy Fly" by ''Music/TheyMightBeGiants'' is about a mutant fly-headed doctor with questionable medical practices. The music video shows him with a compulsive desire to cut things in half with his bonesaw.

* The music video for Music/{{Eminem}}'s "Godzilla" ends with a scene of Music/DrDre (who is NotThatKindOfDoctor) and Slim Shady ([[SerialKiller armed with a rusty cleaver]]) operating on Eminem after anaesthetising him with whisky. They detach Em's mouth from his body, where it [[MotorMouth flops around rapping uncontrollably]] as Eminem scrabbles around after it.

[[quoteright:350:[[VideoGame/TeamFortress2 https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/meet_the_medic_surgery_1705.jpg]]]]

* The ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' video ''[[https://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 (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. Mind you, the Medic's nigh-magical Medigun, plus the CartoonPhysics of the ''Team Fortress 2'' universe, [[JustifiedTrope allow him to throw caution out the window]].
--->'''Heavy''': Should I be awake for this?\\
'''Medic''': [laughs] Well, no. But as long as you are, ''[[BodyHorror could you hold your rib cage open a bit?]]''

--->'''Medic''': When the patient woke up, his skeleton was missing, and the doctor was never heard from again! [laughs] Anyway, that's how I lost my medical license.
** 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 lab coat and gloves when he's preparing for battle.
** In ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbOBcHGwWDg The Sound of Medicine]]'' promo, the Medic develops a device for reviving people in the middle of the battlefield. This process apparently uses the Medigun's normal healing ability while telekinetically reassembling the victim back to normal. ''That last part was not a metaphor'', it literally lifts the gibs back into a holographic template.
** During ''The Naked and the Dead'', a meatgrinder ''transfusion'' is shown, with Medic simply scooping the blood out of puddles with any available cloth (including underwear) and pouring it back into his exsanguinated team's wounds, getting them back in order instantly (albeit causing [[HighPressureBlood blood to splurt violently out of their eyes]] if squeezed). The ensuing conversation between Ms. Pauling and the Medic lampshades it, with him joking about medical school being useless, then telling her as a TwoFacedAside that worrying about blood types is the ''least'' of her problems. It'd seem he's plenty aware none of what he does makes much sense, but it works anyways; why should he bother? [[spoiler:Then again, it's later revealed that he received his nonsensical but functional techniques through a DealWithTheDevil, which pretty much gives him the ability to think up whatever stupid solution he can think of that's impossible in reality, but it'll work in his favor regardless. ''[[HoistByHisOwnPetard He even got the ability to surgically-implant others' souls into him]]'', which allowed him to outsmart ''Satan'' and get a few extra decades alive until the latter thinks up a way to outsmart him then.]]

* ''VideoGame/SpaceStation13'': A patient can come in after being attacked with a chainsaw, and they can be fixed with nothing but a bedsheet as surgical drapes, a shard of glass as a scalpel, a coil of electrical wiring to tie together their wounds, and a cigarette lighter to cauterize them once the surgery is done. Even when proper surgical tools are used, anesthetic is completely [[SkipTheAnesthetic ignored.]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* This trope is zig-zagged in the ''Literature/{{Temeraire}}'' series. Human medical treatment is standard for UsefulNotes/TheNapoleonicWars, 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.

* This trope is invoked in ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' by Ork doctors, the painboyz (also known as Doks, or Mad Doks), whose idea of "anesthesia" is giving the patient a violent concussion. 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 -- which to the doks means they have plenty of leeway for [[PlayingWithSyringes experimentation and personal amusement]] (successful ork ''head transplants'' are entirely possible). Having a Painboy in a unit gives all of its members a chance of ignoring damage- its unclear whether this is because the dok [[YouWontFeelAThing treats the injuries]], or if the nearby [[FateWorseThanDeath reminder of what awaits the injured]] encourages Orks to ignore little things like [[TisOnlyABulletInTheBrain bullets to the head]] and [[YouCallThatAWound missing limbs]].
-->'''[[VideoGame/DawnOfWar Mad Dok:]]''' [[HarmfulHealing This is gonna 'urt]] ''[[HarmfulHealing a lot!]]'' [[HarmfulHealing But you'll be bettah, you'll see!...]]
** The GaidenGame ''Gorkamorka'' had somewhere in the neighbourhood of six pages of rules for visiting the Dok after a scrap (usually several scraps after the injury was sustained, in fact, since it'd take that long for the injured Ork's comrades to convince him to go). Particularly notable results on the tables for this included replacing the patient's brain with that of a face-eater squig, bolting a thruster pack to the unfortunate Ork's spine, and the Dok ''forgetting what he was doing'' and operating on the wrong part of the body.
** The World Eaters are made exclusively of WarGod-worshipping lunatics who don't care whose blood they spill (the enemy's, their allies', their ''own''...) who have lobes of their brain removed so as to no longer feel fear. The individuals to whom this delicate task is trusted are, of course, known as ''berserker surgeons''.
** This type of surgery is why the famed Dok Grotsnik is totally insane. In an attempt to save him after an attack by some angry patients, his Gretchin "nurses" went to work. Before it was over, they had vomited in his open skull, a spider had found a comfy spot to rest in his head and he died half-a-dozen times on the table. When he came to, what little sanity he originally had was ''long'' gone.

* ''TabletopGame/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."
* In the ''TabletopGame/{{Ravenloft}}'' setting, it's implied that this is the sort of "surgery" used by Frantisek Markov, the Darklord of Markovia, to turn victims into Broken Ones, although there is at least some magic involved as well. {{Justified|Trope}} as he was actually an uneducated butcher prior to his JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope into becoming a Darklord. He uses no anesthetic, in any case.
* If you're really unlucky in choosing a BackalleyDoctor in ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}'', this is what you wind up with. The result tends to be less "medicine" and more "[[OrganTheft chop out your organs]] and cyberware, then sell your corpse to [[ToServeMan ghouls]]."

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

* 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.

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

* ''Webcomic/AwfulHospital'': Head surgeon Circula Tori operates on Fern with a spork and drops her ID card into her chest cavity... but nonetheless repeatedly restores her to life. In an unusually literal example, she once does so after Fern falls into a living meat grinder.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'' episode "Dying For Pie", Spongebob "performs" open-heart surgery on Squidward by opening his chest cavity and poking his heart with his finger. This causes '''blood to come squirting out''', though Squidward is alive and well in the next scene.

--> Vulpes: That was... incredible. How did you do that?\\
Courier: I have no idea whatsoever.

Compare with ComicallyIneptHealing and WorstAid.

* Doctor Zed in ''VideoGame/Borderlands2'' asks the protagonists (crazy gun-toting badasses) to assist in the 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 do your melee attack, which includes things like slashing the man in the chest with an axe or punching his chest open.
-->'''Zed:''' Eh, close enough.
** The same task only requires you to damage him, so it's perfectly valid to ''blow up the patient with a grenade'' and he still considers it "close enough". You can also hop on the guy's body (which somehow achieves the same effect).
** He wasn't any better in the first game. The first time players see him, Zed's giving a malevolent look to a fellow who 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 crossbred 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?
** His intro in the second one is even more violent, as he drives a needle into a man's sternum by ''slamming it in''. He also outright admits that he lacks both a doctorate (of any kind) and a Medical License. That last one particularly grinds him because Doc Mercy, a ''psychotic murderous bandit'', apparently still has a valid one.

* The ''VideoGame/AmateurSurgeon'' series 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 bone saw, right?

* In the ''WesternAnimation/TurningRed'' fanfic ''Fanfic/TheGreatRedPandaRescue'', Mei is kidnapped and gets her appendix removed after being knocked out by a blow to the head.

[[folder:Anime]]

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

[[caption-width-right:350:"[[FunetikAksent Anyvay]], [[NoodleIncident zat's how I lost my medical license."]]]]

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]]. But most of the time, this type of surgery will SkipTheAnesthetic.

* Deliberately invoked by a cancer patient in [[https://notalwaysright.com/a-very-special-brain/31925/ this]] ''[[Website/NotAlwaysFriendly Not Always Friendly]]'' story, as part of his quest to make the nurses laugh every time he goes in for radiation treatment.