Capt. Nick Saunders is a doctor character who makes a one-time appearance in the Season 4 episode of M*A*S*H titled "Der Tag". The part of Captain Saunders is played in the episode by Joe Morton. The character is listed as Captain Saunders in the closing credits but Potter addresses him as "Nick".
About Captain Saunders[]
Captain Nick Saunders is a battalion surgeon at a battalion aid station supported by the 4077th MASH. In the early part of "Der Tag", Potter asks Hawkeye and B.J. to befriend and entertain Frank Burns who is feeling lonely because Margaret is away at a conference in Tokyo. Hawkeye and B.J. invite Frank to play poker and then get him drunk in the Officers' Club. Frank passes out and is carried to the Swamp. Hawkeye and B.J. decide to play a joke on him by attaching a toe tag declaring that he is "Emotionally exhausted and morally bankrupt." In the middle of the night, Frank goes to the latrine and then mistakenly crawls into an ambulance which has just come from the front.
The next morning the whole camp is looking for Frank when Saunders calls Potter to tell him that Frank Burns has turned up unconscious at the aid station! Potter can't believe it but recognizes Saunders' accurate description: "Skinny guy uh, no chin, big pores?"
Saunders can't send Frank back as he is short of vehicles so Potter "volunteers" Hawkeye and B.J. to go and collect Frank. Part way through the journey, Saunders calls Potter again to say he is under enemy artillery attack and might be overrun. He advises the 4077th personnel to keep away but it is too late.
Hawkeye and B.J. arrive and they proceed to help treat the wounded in a scene which depicts the activity of a battalion aid station fairly realistically. Hawkeye, of course, knows what to do - he has been to a battalion aid station with Margaret and Klinger in "Aid Station". Nick Saunders however gives tips to B.J. who is at the front for the first time. When treating one patient, B.J. asks a medic for a suture set up. Saunders corrects him, telling him that a battalion aid station is not a MASH. There is no time for definitive surgery. The priority is to get the patient stable and put him on a chopper for evacuation.