# When did it become OK to show open surgery on TV?



## smmudge (Apr 2, 2012)

It seems that nowadays TV producers will come up with any old excuse to show someone getting cut open on the operating table, and in very graphic detail. It can't always have been like this surely?

I remember when I was around 15 everyone started talking about the breast implant surgery that was going to happen, and I remember watching that (everyone did). That seemed like a big thing at the time but maybe that was just because of my age. That would have been 10 years ago. It seems like nothing now, but I'm sure there would have been a time when that sort of thing was considered too gory to be on TV. When did that start to change?


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## Reno (Apr 2, 2012)

Around ten years ago.


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## moochedit (Apr 2, 2012)

Didn't that C4 show "the word" have some graphic operation stuff in the early '90s ?


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## Mumbles274 (Apr 2, 2012)

also seems the norm to show death and the like on the tv news and in the papers, with no warning


luckily i don't consume either, i prefer my news R4 stylee


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## yardbird (Apr 2, 2012)

I remember operations being shown on tv when it was black and white.

"Your life in their hands" I think it was.


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## Mrs Magpie (Apr 2, 2012)

yardbird said:


> I remember operations being shown on tv when it was black and white.


Me too. In the days of only 3 channels.


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## souljacker (Apr 2, 2012)

Years and years. It's educational.


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## smmudge (Apr 2, 2012)

What sort of operations did they show in black and white?


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## yardbird (Apr 2, 2012)

Your Life In Their Hands ?


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## Mrs Magpie (Apr 2, 2012)

Oh, well before that I think, yardie.


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## purenarcotic (Apr 2, 2012)

I've always remembered things being quite graphic, even programmes like Children's Hospital (anybody remember that) used to show the operations and that must have been early to mid 90's.

I think it's ace, that one they did recently on the paediatric  craniofacial unit was unbelievable.


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## Mrs Magpie (Apr 2, 2012)

This is old.
http://www.britishpathe.com/video/hospital-operation-televised/query/Alfred


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## yardbird (Apr 2, 2012)

yardbird said:


> Your Life In Their Hands ?


I had no idea that it was a modern program too - the bbc have just revived the title.
I think we are going back to the early 60s.


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## purenarcotic (Apr 2, 2012)

Channel 4 did a couple of years back a live autopsy of a woman with cancer.  They shaved the body into thin slices so you could see the progression of the cancer.  They did it with that bloke who does the exhibitions of the body incased in plastic or whatever it is, his name permanently escapes me.  They didn't show it until like midnight but I suppose that's really very graphic.


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## smmudge (Apr 2, 2012)

I guess to be more specific I mean showing open surgery as a form of entertainment, rather than education. I guess for a lot of documentary things it's difficult to know which it is, if it isn't a bit of both anyway. With things like embarrassing bodies it seems to me like gratuitous graphic surgery dressed up as education but clearly just gross for the sake of gross (I'm sure I wasn't always that squeamish but I can't watch it any more!).


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## Minnie_the_Minx (Apr 2, 2012)

purenarcotic said:


> Channel 4 did a couple of years back a live autopsy of a woman with cancer. They shaved the body into thin slices so you could see the progression of the cancer. They did it with that bloke who does the exhibitions of the body incased in plastic or whatever it is, his name permanently escapes me. They didn't show it until like midnight but I suppose that's really very graphic.


 
Gunther von Hagens


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## Minnie_the_Minx (Apr 2, 2012)

smmudge said:


> I guess to be more specific I mean showing open surgery as a form of entertainment, rather than education. I guess for a lot of documentary things it's difficult to know which it is, if it isn't a bit of both anyway. With things like embarrassing bodies it seems to me like gratuitous graphic surgery dressed up as education but clearly just gross for the sake of gross (I'm sure I wasn't always that squeamish but I can't watch it any more!).


 
I've never watched it, but it's always struck me that these people seem to lose their embarrassment when there's a tv camera around


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## purenarcotic (Apr 2, 2012)

EB as a whole concept cracks me up; I'm too embarrassed to visit my GP, but not embarrassed enough to appear on national TV and have millions of people look at my bits. Embarrassed my arse.


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## Reno (Apr 2, 2012)

smmudge said:


> I guess to be more specific I mean showing open surgery as a form of entertainment, rather than education. I guess for a lot of documentary things it's difficult to know which it is, if it isn't a bit of both anyway. With things like embarrassing bodies it seems to me like gratuitous graphic surgery dressed up as education but clearly just gross for the sake of gross (I'm sure I wasn't always that squeamish but I can't watch it any more!).


 
Yes, that's what I thought you meant. There occasionally was something like a birth or surgery on the telly, in the 70s or 80s, but it would be part of some serious documentary, late at night and considered a little controversial. I only remember these entertainment programmes on plastic surgery that consist of endless close ups of peoples innards, sex changes, liposuction, etc to have started around a decade ago.


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## smmudge (Apr 2, 2012)

I have a sneaking suspicion that many of the people who go on Embarrassing Bodies have been refused NHS treatment while the TV company are willing to pay.


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## sim667 (Apr 2, 2012)

I always remember there being ops on tv for ages...... Maybe even as far back as tomorrows world


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## yardbird (Apr 2, 2012)

This is the place for all those photographs and stories that don't quite fit elsewhere. The first one comes from Bernie Newnham who was trying to find out who the VT engineer was _(see below)_. The next *three* come from Cliff White who joined the BBC in 1958 as part of Junior PTA1 - see *ETD* for more information - and the final one from Howard Dell.






This was in a part of a magazine which must date from late 1963. Ron Bowman came up with the answer as to the identity of the VT engineer:-
_I cannot tell a lie - it's me with hair! The occasion was the review of an early episode of Your Life in Their Hands. It looks like we are having a matey *chat* but he barely spoke to me. Do you remember them, blood and gore in black and white? At a guess I'd say VT7. If he was 36 I must have still been in short trousers! Thinking about it, I must have been about 25. Doesn't time fly?_


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## Minnie_the_Minx (Apr 2, 2012)

smmudge said:


> I have a sneaking suspicion that many of the people who go on Embarrassing Bodies have been refused NHS treatment while the TV company are willing to pay.


 
I have no idea, but then why aren't they getting the treatment they need on the NHS?  If girls are able to get boob jobs and nose jobs on the NHS, then why aren't they able to get help?


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## smmudge (Apr 2, 2012)

Minnie_the_Minx said:


> I have no idea, but then why aren't they getting the treatment they need on the NHS? If girls are able to get boob jobs and nose jobs on the NHS, then why aren't they able to get help?


 
I don't know why, doesn't a lot of what's funded depend on how much your local area can afford? There seem to be two main types of patient on EB: those that have problems that are mostly cosmetic; and patients that have persistent problems that have been investigated to a certain extent already, but are maybe not serious enough/don't affect everyday life enough for a stretched healthcare service to think it's worth looking into further.

Not that I watch it that much


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## purenarcotic (Apr 2, 2012)

And there's patients who have left basic problems and allowed them to go out of control.  There was one bloke I remember with piles so bad he had to have surgery.  He openly admitted he'd just left it for years before bothering to seek medical advice and was really narked when he was told he'd need surgery.


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## smmudge (Apr 2, 2012)

Reno said:


> Yes, that's what I thought you meant. There occasionally was something like a birth or surgery on the telly, in the 70s or 80s, but it would be part of some serious documentary, late at night and considered a little controversial. I only remember these entertainment programmes on plastic surgery that consist of endless close ups of peoples innards, sex changes, liposuction, etc to have started around a decade ago.


 
Oh I see  I thought you were being funny because of what I said in the OP. I suspect Channel 4 has a lot to do with the rise of open surgery as entertainment.


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## Epona (Apr 3, 2012)

I first watched surgery on TV back in the '70s, this was before we had a multitude of channels to choose from.  Out of the 3 we had available, I am guessing that it was probably BBC2, with its more educational and informative stance than the other two channels.  I think it was open heart surgery that I watched, in a documentary.  Utterly fascinating


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## purves grundy (Apr 3, 2012)

yardbird said:


> "Your life in their hands" I think it was.


Yep, I remember that being on in the 12.30 - 1pm slot, after Rainbow and before the news.


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## UrbaneFox (Apr 3, 2012)

It's bad enough seeing science news stories where a needle is jabbing away at a cell. It goes on for ages. I feel sick.


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## mrs quoad (Apr 3, 2012)

moochedit said:


> Didn't that C4 show "the word" have some graphic operation stuff in the early '90s ?


They made someone drink liquidised worms


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## moochedit (Apr 3, 2012)

mrs quoad said:


> They made someone drink liquidised worms


 
Yes, they had that "i'll do anything to get on tv" bit where people ate toe nail clippings and the like.
I remember they had a breast implant op and a penus extension op, both of which were very graphic.


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## seeformiles (Apr 4, 2012)

I remember that sort of thing was limited to Channel 4 in the 80s - about the time when "Red Triangle" films were the height of late night daring.
I recall watching a programme on open heart surgery about that time and eating a meat pie at the same time to prove to a girlfriend that I was immune to the gore - the things you do for love....


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