uhh.. Let's talk about Cutler. Do you think it would have moved forward into a romance and/or affair in the next season if she was still with us?
Yes I thought at one point, after mid-first season, they might have steered Hoshi towards more time with Phlox, maybe helping out with menagerie. Then they seemed to forget about it. Duh.
I wanted to know who Hoshi would have hooked up with in the E2 crew. I thought it was odd she didn't want to know.. if it was me I certainly would have. Cutler and Phlox should have developed some mutual romantic tension. He doesn't want to hurt her since he knows humans have different relationship expectations than denobulans but despite his best intentions or perhaps because of them he develops feelings for her.
There were the odd episode when you saw random blueshirts at work in Sickbay (who weren't Elizabeth Cutler). But in the episode where Phlox is alone on the ship and has an imaginary T'Pol with him (you know just like that epsiode where Seven was alone and imagined a bad-guy alien running around onboard), when they are clear of whatever it was he says they should make a start with reviving his medical staff.
Every other Trek doctor had a nurse, or some nurse-equivelent. I rather like the idea of one working solo, which is pretty much exactly what we got with Phlox. Maybe he trained some of his animals to pass him things.
Maybe it's a Denobulan custom for doctors to do the things that our culture assigns to nurses. After all, Denobulans rarely sleep, so Phlox would have more time to get things done by himself.