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[Sutremaine]

Medical skills are hard to train, and even the easiest one to manipulate (Diagnosis) requires no available crutches and a patient with a broken leg.

Dwarves who have no weapons or shields equipped will train Wrestling, which can cause real injuries if the dwarf gets thrown. Giving your test dwarves a mail shirt and a helm and the minimum of clothing should protect their skulls and spines from fatal injury while allowing other bones to fracture (possibly motor nerve damage too, which is generally undesireable). As an added bonus, dwarves subjected to this regime will train themselves as well as the doctors, improving their stats and survivability.

Has anyone ever done this, accidentally or not?

[Deepblade]

I don't think Dwarves train that roughly anymore. A danger room, if carefully used and designed, can do that though. especially for extended periods of time, after they become tired.

I think the general consensus is to "shotgun" mine carts into undesirable migrants willing test-subjects, or even drop them from heights. It's easier to control and solves a problem, eventually.

[KtosoX]

Ummm... is it possible to combine training and dropping from heights?
I'm thinking of a training room with holes or something like that.

[Sutremaine]

Dwarves are training as they have done since 0.31, but since 34.07 or 34.08 one of their sparring moves has become dangerous. Dwarves who get taken down by a wrestling move can skid along the floor, receiving normal damage from the skidding. Even leather armour is sufficient to soak much of the force, but unarmoured parts can be broken easily.

Odds are you won't see sparring injuries in regular gameplay, as your military will often be armed and fully armoured. They'll attack with weapons 95% of the time, and on the rare occasions when they're in a position to throw their sparring partner the combat-class armour they're wearing will take care of it. These 'attacks' from the floor do show up in the combat log even with full deflection.

You can combine training and dropping. I'm moderately sure that dwarves can hurt themselves falling down ramps, so a 1x1 barracks surrounded by ramps should lead to extra injuries. Or a 1x1 barracks surrounded by a channel and with one access ramp.

[potpourri1]

Medical skills are hard to train, and even the easiest one to manipulate (Diagnosis) requires no available crutches and a patient with a broken leg.

Dwarves who have no weapons or shields equipped will train Wrestling, which can cause real injuries if the dwarf gets thrown. Giving your test dwarves a mail shirt and a helm and the minimum of clothing should protect their skulls and spines from fatal injury while allowing other bones to fracture (possibly motor nerve damage too, which is generally undesireable). As an added bonus, dwarves subjected to this regime will train themselves as well as the doctors, improving their stats and survivability.

Has anyone ever done this, accidentally or not?

This is what I love about this game - the gradual (or not so gradual) numbing to the fate of your dwarfs. Where else do you start atom-smashing children to save on food and parties, or have your military intentionally break each other's bones to give your doctors more work?
Of course, knowing my luck, I'll end up with two thirds of my military on crutches just in time for a siege or FB.

[Girlinhat]

Dwarves do not train violently in the past few years.  All sparring is "taps lightly with the adamantine battleaxe" and no wounds.

There's two ways to injure a dwarf reliably then, among others.
1: Set them into a dangerous location - This can be upright spikes on repeat, enclosed animals, timed magma showers, exposure to goblins, or what-have-you.  That includes regular militia, who are subjected to goblins and ogres regularly.

2: Put them on sparring, over a pit - Make a 1x1 training room, on a platform surrounded on 8 sides by open air (9th tile is the bridge).  Make the pit 3-5 deep (technically 2-7, but then you're in the range of non-damaging, and lethal, so 3-5 should get a nice number of injuries with survival).  Training dwarves won't hurt each other, but they will dodge.

Either case, have a well stocked hospital and wait for the training to pile up.

[Di]

Also, you can use one of those giant insect zombies like thrips or grasshopper. Place one of squad members like ten steps from others and drop and insect near him. By the time his friends will stop the training the subject will be thoroughly broken, well trained in wrestling and not caring of anything any more. He'll also provide quite a bunch of task for your medical practitioners.

My militia commander has become emotionally crippled in otherwise well-being fort in half a year from the embark. Sadly, I haven't got to making this regular training, yet.
Also, you'll probably want that insect-killing soldiers wield blunt weapons so that you can reuse the grasshopper corpse.

[Aviator CJ]

If you get a Forgotten Beast that causes just the right kind of syndrome, and you manage to contain the bugger, then you could continually train you med-dwarfs. I had just a beastie recently, but the annoying thing was that my squads killed him anyway.

[morgoththegreat]

There's two ways to injure a dwarf reliably then, among others.
1: ...

2: ...

3.  As Sutremaine says, set them to wrestle while unarmored.  They will reliably try to kill each other once they reach a certain skill level, especially if there are obstacles (like walls) near their barracks for them to slam into.

[Kon]

Sutremaine is correct. Wrestling dwarves frequently get injured while sparring.

[Darchitect]

Burrow your children in a room with a retracting bridge as a floor. I believe you only need a 1z drop, since the bridge flings them when it retracts.

[BoredVirulence]

I have never tried this, but it sounds like an intriguing idea.
I might mod an embark to have extra dwarves to test this. I might mod their wrestling skills to see if a high skilled wrestlers causes damage inducing throws.

My suspision is that you are correct, that should work. In my experience, skidding along the ground can be more deadly than a well aimed axe.

[Girlinhat]

Burrow your children in a room with a retracting bridge as a floor. I believe you only need a 1z drop, since the bridge flings them when it retracts.

Spoken like someone who's never tried.

Children don't respect burrow orders.  They see them more as 'burrow suggestions' and will just as quickly ignore them.  They only respond to fort-wide alert burrows, but will also react to bedroom declarations and deconstruction orders.

[evictedSaint]

What I don't understand is why you would WANT to train up medical skills.  It seems like a waste of time.

The only thing it really modifies is speed; and if you've got a decent fortress, you've usually got a Doc plus a couple extra nurses to get the job done.

Granted, your victims may lose a bit more blood, but the only noticeable effect of a poorly trained doctor is the 5-10 extra tics it takes for him to sew up Urist McBloodfountain.

I suppose if you have nothing better to do, you can try training up a doctor, but I've never noticed a real need.

[Girlinhat]

It's the science.  Having a skilled doctor is a better show of wealth and power than all the statues and trade goods to make.