Real Doctor Reacts To MASH TV Show

MASH was one of the most successful American sitcoms of all time, running for 11 award-winning seasons from 1972-1983. The show is set at an American Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, or MASH, in Korea during the Korean War of the 1950's. Starring Alan Alda as Hawkeye Pierce, an army surgeon who likes to play by his own rules, the show was a massive success, culminating in the most highly-watched series finale of all time, garnering 106 million viewers. That's all interesting history... but how accurate are the medical scenes? Today we look at the ethics of taking someone's blood without their consent, performing a tracheotomy in the field, proper behavior during surgery, how long you could hold a heart together with your fingers, and of course, CHEST COMPRESSIONS.

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* Select photos/videos provided by Getty Images *

** The information in this video is not intended nor implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. All content, including text, graphics, images, and information, contained in this video is for general information purposes only and does not replace a consultation with your own doctor/health professional **

[kmatayka]

I was an Army medic for 15 years, and honestly the appeal of the show isn’t the medical accuracy but rather the emotional accuracy that is depicted. The bonds that are made, the stress of the situation, the absolute need to save every single person you see. Losing someone in a combat zone is very different than losing someone in a hospital, or on a EMT call.

Also as medics when we are treating life threatening injuries in combat our goal is to save a life we say “infection can be treated in the rear.” Things aren’t clean in combat.

[blakedubois]

My grandpa was a medic in ww2 and he said this was very very accurate for the time, he even said it was hard to watch because it was so close to how it was

[WickedSunflower]

The consulting physicians for this show consisted mostly of actual surgeons that worked in MASH units in the Korean War. They said that the show was adapted pretty accurately with the dark humor, sexual exploits, injuries they saw and treated, and the general atmosphere both in OR and the camp at large. A lot has changed since the early 50s. My dad, born with a cleft lip and palate in 1952, would be taken for surgeries and no one discussed with him what was happening, they would strap his arms to boards before surgery and leave him that way for days after. Seems barbaric now, but it was accepted practice then. MASH gives us the opportunity to see a different side of medical practice, outside the shiny-clean clinic and spotlessly sterile ORs of today. They couldn’t do ACTUAL compressions on an actor, and they didn’t have the hyper realistic dummies we have now, and even now compressions aren’t usually portrayed with 100% accuracy. I love your content but you really missed the mark on this one. A bit of research into the show, its creators and consultants, and standard of practice for the time period and setting would have given you more perspective and understanding, I think. Combat medicine is NOT the same as a clean stateside clinic or hospital.

[danielwendlick]

The whole episode with the aorta was co-written by the show's medical advisor, who had been a combat surgeon in Korea.

[OkieOtaku]

Remember, this takes place during the Korean War (1950-1953). HIPAA wasn't a thing until the 90's. A MASH is also a *field* hospital, it's designed for short term care. It's supposed to be there to help get an injured soldier stable for transport to an actual hospital for proper long term care. Designed to be set up and torn down on a moments notice too, never the most clean. Regulations have come a long way in the nearly 70 years since the wars end.

[gauvinarena]

The incompetence of Major Burns was a fact written into the show and often “fact checked” by Hawkeye. No actions of frank Burns should be used to judge medical accuracy of the show in general especially when it is often judged as inaccurate by the other characters

[JudasFm]

I usually love your react videos and I really love MASH, but this one was unfair. You can't judge mid-20th century medicine in a war zone by the standards of 21st century medical knowledge in a peaceful country. I hope you'll do another MASH video when you've had time to watch the series and can comment from a more realistic perspective.

[MiracleFound]

Doctor Mike! They didn't have SCD's back then. People went in the hospital days before surgery for preparation back then and stayed for weeks afterwards in bed! This show was actually pretty accurate, right down to the doctors behavior.

[joshuawatson]

The writers of the show have said that many of the most insane and unlikely seeming stories they told in the show were actually taken from real stories of real doctors who served in MASH units. Life is stranger than fiction.

These doctors didn’t have the benefit of modern medical knowledge, and they certainly didn’t have all the time, tools, and equipment they needed to do things ideally (that’s kind of the point of the show).

It certainly is a product of its time, and parts haven’t aged well. It also was and still is an important commentary on war and the human suffering it causes.

I remember hearing a Korean War veteran say that MASH was super important to him, because it helped him process the trauma he witnessed and was part of.

[gayahithwen]

I'd really love for you to get some older doctors on to talk about what medicine was back in the day. Probably you'll be hard pressed to find doctors who served in the Korean war (70 years ago now), but even a bit of an older perspective would be interesting. Also also, Alan Alda is still alive, and passionate about science communication. If you did a react video with him, I can pretty much guarantee the internet would implode on you.

[crazysnake]

Something to remember is that MASH is set in the 1950’s on a battlefield. Conditions couldn’t be as sterile as they would be in a traditional hospital, people died of infection all the time. They also didn’t have the techniques that are common place today. Medicine has had 60 years to get better.

[racefabwrench]

It was called meatball surgery for a reason. This show was set in the Korean War between 1950 to 1953. They didn’t have the luxuries of the medical training of today. Nearly every operation was off the cuff under extreme pressure and chaotic situations. In a lot of cases a MASH unit was merely to stabilize a patient so they could be moved to a better equipped faculty, usually Japan. And on top of all that it was meant to be a comedy/satirical series not a medical documentary. So the harsh criticism is rather unwarranted.

[Bad_Wolf_Media]

A couple of items of note: The show as created in the early 70s, and it's about a combat field-hospital in the Korean War in the 1950s, so....yeah, things are going to be WAY different in pretty much every regard.

The scene at about 4:50, one important thing there is that those were NOT doctors treating him. It was the Chaplin and a radio specialist. There's a very good chance they wouldn't even know how to check for a pulse, to be honest.

[ShortHax]

I’m not a doctor but I liked how the characters were chest compression experts first, not caring about politics and differences when it came to saving lives

[brandonmathieu]

CPR hadn't come into its own until AFTER the Korean War, so I think it's okay to give the show a pass because if the show is being historically accurate, there was no standard technique for it. Even in one of the earlier seasons, Hawkeye said that he was going to try a "new technique" he had only read about in his medical journals of "messaging the heart".

[Roxsb]

Cardiac thump was still being taught when my mom was in school in the early 80’s. Also why do you think so many protocols are in place now? It’s due to the way medicine was practiced in the past. You really blew this video, as you shouldn’t have judge it in how things are done now.

[kittykat]

The first season they didn't have a lot of doctor influence. But the later seasons they actually got input from real doctors.
But it's still a comedy.

[Freyalise]

As someone who seen a lot of mash, the celebration truly is that he survived. You see repeatedly over the series Hawkeye get devastated when he loses a patient, doing everything he can to save a patient, and seemingly being so stubborn that his own refusal for them to die keeps them alive. These characters are truly happy that the man survived.

[ce]

Okay, you can't judge M*A*S*H on today's standards. It's not about when it was filmed, it's about when it was SET. It was set in the 1950s in the Korean War. Defibrillators didn't even exist yet when Korea was happening.

A LOT of medical advancements have

[Wolverines]

Hey Doc, this was 5 years after the end of WW2. They had next to zero sanitation outside of the tent, These hospitals were often only a mile from the battlefield. They often had more incoming patients on the actual verge of death and were being triaged outside in the elements. It was not uncommon for doctors to make life or death decisions based on 15 seconds of time to diagnose these patients, over half of them filled with shrapnel as well as a bullet or four.

Please stop with the "This did not age well". This type of behavior happened all the time. While it is exaggerated because of the 30 minute time frame of the show, the more we can teach the younger generations just how awful life "really" was the more likely they are to actually to note to be able to think back in a constructive manner rather than thinking of a dumba$$ meme.