Basic Trope: A character performs surgery or some other type of medical procedure on themselves.
- Straight: Alice goes into labor, but she starts having some complications. She has no midwife or doctor to help her, and she lives in a rural area far from any hospitals, and her nearest neighbors are 10 miles away. She has no telephone, and her husband Bob is in town working. She performs a C-section on herself.
- Exaggerated: Alice performs her own brain surgery. Did we mention that she used a butter knife, a piece of string, and a paperclip to do it? While drunk? And that she came out of it alive and not suffering a brain injury?
- Downplayed: Alice draws a tube of her own blood.
- Justified:
- Given the outlined circumstances, it's either DIY or suffer Death by Childbirth.
- Alice actually does have medical training.
- Inverted:
- Alice, a surgeon, performs a C-section on Betty.
- Alice goes into surgery for a C-section (whether planned or emergency).
- Subverted: Alice decides to let herself labor naturally or change positions, or try to get the baby to turn around herself.
- Double Subverted: Alice ends up performing an episiotomy on herself.
- Parodied: As part of one of her final exams for medical school, Alice has to remove her own appendix.
- Zig Zagged: ???
- Averted:
- Alice suffers no difficulties in childbirth, either with or without a midwife to help her.
- Alice is not in labor.
- Alice is able to get to a doctor.
- Alice is not attempting a homebirth.
- Enforced: Rule of Drama
- Lampshaded: "I can't believe you did that yourself!"
- Invoked: Alice is in labor at home, but it's failing to progress, and she suspects something is wrong. But she has no way of getting to a hospital or calling for help.
- Exploited: Alice, who lives in Perpetual Poverty, sees this as a way to save on medical bills.
- Defied:
- Alice calls for help (if not by a telephone, by a telegraph, or a messenger bird) and get to a hospital.
- Alice just lets labor progress naturally, even at the risk of death or injury.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Deconstructed: Because Alice doesn't know what she's doing (also factoring in a combination of pain and a crude anesthetic such as alcohol, as well as perhaps not having sharp enough tools), Alice ends up injuring herself severely. (i.e. cutting a major artery, puncturing her bladder or bowel, etc.) or getting an infection.
Back to Self-Surgery
