I'm surprised no one covered this but what happens when the holodeck powers down during a heart transplant or malfunctions? With the EMH if he fails at least someone living can pick up where he left off (to the best of their abilities).
^ Given that misspeaking a single command to the holodeck, can result in its creating a sentient being who tries to hijack your ship, I don't think I'd want to rely on it for my heart transplant.
Touché. They need UPS systems on starships. Think of a hospital today: they can't risk losing power during a orthoscopic / laparoscopic procedure. They could keep the gasoline generators in the shuttlebay and store the gasoline in the nacelles. (... put put put put put put put ...)
Good idea - transporters and replicators providing drugs and tech, forcefields providing beds and holo-nurses, with at least one instance of the EMH or some medic-trained personnel in charge, depending on whether it's used for triage or treatment. And for diseases, add in neural telepresence. The doctor is in one holodeck, in a hypnotic state on a couch, while they feel like they're in the other holodeck, treating contagious patients, but they're only a hologram there, so they can't catch anything. Oh, and as for how much stuff can be replicated? At least a suit, gown, and loaded Tommygun can be made at once...
Depends - modern nurses are highly trained medical professionals in their own right, and an Emergency Medical Hologram Nurse would be at least comparable to the EMH Doctor in the complexity of integrating a requisite amount of medical knowledge. On the other hand, the computer automatically does most of the monitoring/observation/recording that would be done by humans in the modern day. So if by "nurses" all you mean is "someone there to reassure the patients, follow the readouts and apply sticking plast--, uh, use a dermal regenerator" - i.e., stuff that could be done by a lay person anyway - that would be as easy as any other holoprogram, yeah. We never get any sign that the EMH Doctor can control multiple holobodies though, even in cases where he's overrun. Wouldn't it be easier to have both doctor and patient (at either end of the line) replicated as physical holograms? Well, Picard explicitly says the bullets are holographic.
Um, no. Modern nurses range from medical assistants with slightly more knowledge than the layman to medical assistants with at least as much knowledge as a doctor. Not all nurses are the same, and it's a false idea to think holo nurses MUST and WILL be only the top end. . As would MOST grades of nurse. Hardware limits on VGR. First, the doctor would be a hologram on the patient's end, and second, what good does a holographic patient do? I don't grok at all. And that was tongue in cheek.
I guess no sailors have gotten to this thread. From reading David Poyer's Cmdr Lenson novels for your Voyager equivalent I would say a couple of Hospital Corpmen. The carriers, Marine assault ships and purpose hospital ships would take transfers since there is really no operating alone like the post war Douglas Reeman books Royal Navy where a lone frigate might have a surgeon. An Army battalion of 800 might only have a PA unless a reserve doctor is called up for triage at their aid station
Sailor here! Corpsman up! Frigates and Destroyers usually have an Independent Duty Corpsman and a second corpsman. LPDs and similar smaller gators have a medical officer (useless) and several corpsmen. Carriers have full facilities.
One room, real doctor operates on holographic patient. In other room, holographic doctor operates on real patient. Telepresence.
OK, I see your method. Not sure which would be easier for the doctor, although I suspect that the dual hologram method would be harder on the computer & holodeck systems.
Only slightly. It would probably be easier than any real holodeck program (especially one with humanoid characters), since the surgery would just be an advanced version of the remote surgery we have now, just with holoprojectors (and holocameras/medical scanners) instead of video cameras and displays.