How long before "The Man Trap" did McCoy know Kirk?

And if medical education in the future still takes 6-8 years, the days at the "everybody attends" Academy for these two officer-hopefuls might well overlap, even if we assume no "previous civilian career" for our MD here.

But the fact that so many of our Starfleet MDs in the spinoffs are young peers of regular officers, rather than old curmudgeons, rather suggests you can become an MD fairly rapidly, at least if you go the Starfleet route. (Perhaps a starship MD is even some sort of a "doctor lite"?)

Timo Saloniemi

 

Bashir was 27 and it is strongly implied that DS9 is one of his first postings. He was a Lt.jg which is probably the most junior rank a doctor can be but he had no other Starfleet staff. So he possibly qualified at 25 and did a few assignments before DS9. McCoy was 40 and was head of life sciences so I would say he qualified in private practice and had more than a few years of Starfleet experience. He might have even been a Lt and assistant to the CMO in Wnmhgb. We know at the very least there is a psychiatrist, a pathologist, and another surgeon (am I also remembering that a Dr Sanchez gets a name check?) on board so maybe M'Benga replaced McCoy as the assistant.

 

I rewatched "Doctor Bashir, I Presume" on H&I the other night, and in that episode Sisko says that Bashir came to DS9 "straight out of medical school."

In my mind Dr. M'Benga came aboard sometime between "Journey to Babel" and "A Private Little War." If there had been a specialist in Vulcan medicine aboard when Sarek had his heart attack and required surgery, Dr. McCoy surely would've called on him. I'm thinking that after the events of JTB, Dr. McCoy decided that he needed a Vulcan specialist aboard full time, and so he requested one be transferred to the Enterprise ASAP.

 

I think 'straight out of medical school ' is possibly misleading. Part of doctors' training is in hospitals. I could see Bashir taking extra academic classes after qualifying ready for a deep space assignment though.

Good point about M'Benga! Must have been Sanchez. ;-p

 

At least he knew where all the organs are.

Actually, Journey to Babel paints a favorable picture of McCoy's knowledge on Vulcan physiology. He's just never operated on a Vulcan (yet).

 

I never said that McCoy had no experience treating non-humans. Only that he wanted to be better prepared the the next time that a Vulcan had a health emergency aboard the Enterprise.

 

An F1 is I think the UK term, trying to recall detail from Holby City. Finished university, but on the first year of hospital experience.
But even Bashir was 28 (at least the actor was), so all old enough to have done uni and five years of training.

 

Not very common now, outside of the Etonians who dominate politics, but does happen.

 

Bashir repeatedly refers to his studies at "Starfleet Medical", starting with "Q-Less", which sort of establishes his training as "in-house". Or at least primarily in-house, as even if we don't hear of alternate places of study, those aren't precluded, either.

We also have every reason to believe that the words "Starfleet Medical" can refer to the Starfleet Medical Division (which provides all sorts of resources to our assorted heroes) and possibly also to a significant hospital run by Starfleet (possibly this is the thing the lowly Commander Crusher administrated for a year in TNG, rather than the entire Division?). But neither of those undermines Bashir's "Q-Less" statement that he (deliberately, we later learn) fumbled a question in "Starfleet Medical finals"...

By extension, e.g. Starfleet engineers might do academic studies at Starfleet Engineering, even though we never hear of such a place. And the academic studies on this additional topic might mean graduation at a later date even if, say, Bashir enrolled at a "regular" age of 18.

Then again, we meet engineer characters who apparently didn't do extra years: LaForge's graduation data would suggest four-year studies, say, even if it's in the form of obscure Okudagrams. No doubt there are various ways to catch up after graduation. And no doubt there are ways to catch up before graduation, so that the already qualified McCoy in the 2009 movie enters Starfleet Academy along with Kirk, but gets his rank pins in a jiffy and then just sort of slums around at Lieutenant Commander rank while Kirk still struggles with making Ensign (or straight-out Lt (j.g) as it may be).

The prime timeline McCoy has time to achieve his TOS status in any of the above ways, which then affects our perception of how he and Kirk first met. Quite possibly he was the Kirk family doctor several years before Jim enrolled. McCoy's vague relationship with the University of Mississippi may be taken whichever way; perhaps it offers studies as part of Starfleet Medical, in addition to offering purely civilian studies?

As for McCoy not having M'Benga's (AFAWK meager) qualifications, I trust Starfleet doesn't have an endless supply of people specializing in Vulcans, or Andorians, or whatever - and has a pool of basically zero people with special competence in more than two species. It's already a triumph for them to get this human-competent doctor aboard, with a side helping of Space Psychology so that he can also cover for the late Dehner.

Timo Saloniemi

 

...With, if TOS is anything to go by, at most three MDs aboard. Even if Starfleet could afford to send one of those to another ship, that wouldn't really solve anything.

The writing on the wall isn't supportive of that. Doctors yesterday could treat human beings. Doctors today can treat components of human beings at best. It would take quite a reversing of a trend to make them capable of treating whole humans again, let alone two species or more.

Timo Saloniemi

 

But they all died which set back the pool of Vulcan qualified doctors in Starfleet.

 

Jadzia Dax says that Bashir is 27 in the DS9 pilot "Emissary." He celebrates his 30th birthday in the third season episode "Distant Voices."

 

In "Trials and Tribble-ations" [DS9] Dax coyly suggests that an earlier host of hers had a romantic encounter with McCoy at Ole Miss ("He had the hands of a surgeon...") I take this to mean that McCoy was studying medicine at the civilian university in Mississippi and started his private practice on Earth someplace. If we are to take a hint from the Kelvin Timeline, McCoy decided to join Starfleet and ship out after a messy divorce. I'm fine with this idea.

Although, if I've understood the complications of Nero's incursion killing George Kirk early, Jim Kirk is talked into joining Starfleet by Pike at a much later age than he did in the Prime timeline. In the Prime Timeline, he enrolls at the academy at 17, but he's a lot older in the 2009 film. So, if we assume that the Nero business didn't really effect McCoy's history a ton (and why should it?) I think it's safe to assume that McCoy joined Starfleet and had to attend a limited curriculum at the Academy, but this was several years after Kirk already graduated, so their meeting in the Prime Timeline would have been a lot different than what we see in 2009.

--Alex

 

Yes, I agree with this logic. My basic theory on the Kelvin Timeline is that the changes started slowly at first, and then increased over time as people's changed lives touched other lives. By the 2250s, they were fairly different.

I did a comparison of the Prime and Kelvin Timelines when I was working on my Star Trek Timeline, and I discovered that McCoy getting divorced and joining Starfleet circa 2255 works pretty well in both timelines. The circumstances of his first meeting with Kirk would be different, however, as Kirk's personal history from 2233-2255 was quite different in the Kelvin Timeline. But maybe their meeting in the Prime Timeline was still similar somehow. They could've still met on a shuttle where McCoy was signing up, only Kirk was a Lieutenant instead of a signing up for the Academy himself. And this would've happened somewhere other than Riverside, Iowa, of course, as there wasn't a Starfleet facility there in the Prime Timeline.

 

I think McCoy's involvement in the Kelvin timeline makes similar sense in the prime. It's Sulu, Uhura, Chekov, and Scotty's involvements that make less sense.

 

It makes some sense that if two people like each other and become friends in one timeline, they still could like each other and become friends in another timeline. As for getting the original timeline band (which took several seasons to accumulate) back together only many years earlier in the new timeline all at once suspends all reason.

 

I don't really have an issue with the gang being assigned to the same ship but more that Sulu, Chekov, and Uhura were not the same age and so would not have been graduating at the same time. I might have given them a pass if Sulu was a post grad doing extra command training after graduating as a physicist. Including Chekov was obviously a timeline error. From a writing perspective, they should have made use of Rand. The Batman movies typically not use Robin straight away. We could have waited for Chekov!

 

Nothing suggests Sulu would have been a cadet there, though. Apparently he was the scheduled replacement helmsman, rather than one of the last-minute additions. Chekov is not addressed as Cadet, either - indeed, the only Cadets in the movie dialogue are Kirk and Uhura.

Timo Saloniemi