Why don't the EMH's hands move super FAST?

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Cardiac arrest! Virus invasion! Something with brains!

We never see a medical emergency where the EMH needs to act fast and so does what only he can do, lightning fast blurred hands doing amazing lifesaving stuff.

The only ways the EMH does things non-human with his body are when he can exist without oxygen. He never runs super fast or stretches his arms out ten feet or uses super human strength (does he??). It seems he can change his programming to learn opera but not to move past physical human parameters.

This is like how no one put a lighter in Data. Or a light. Or anything useful. Data's eyes should turn into search lights in the dark!

 

[Melakon]

Search lights, are you kidding? His eyes should have been able to shoot phaser beams.

Or shoot a photon torpedo out his .

And he's fully functional, so he probably has a flashlight in his pants.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

That's quite a puerile reply Melakon, I am trying to have a serious discussion here. He doesn't need a flashlight in his penis unless he's examining her cervix, regular ol' multi-frequency vibration should do him fine.

BUT DOES HE HAVE IT? And can be whip cream by turning his fingers into whirling blades?!

Probably not.

Soong would have made him plenty big though, since he's a vanity project.

 

[Melakon]

After that earlier reply, I started wondering if maybe he really does have a telephone in his torso like in that dream he had.

 

[Stoo]

On a related note, remember the holographic miners? Why are they even humanoid? They should just be a floating hopper with arms and cutting tools.

Voyager put forward the idea of holograms as basically another race, so discussion of issues like rights and prejudice could be brought up. So they're very humanlike in a lot of ways. But, yeh, it meant a lot of questions are raised as to why you would create entities this technolgy with such limitless possibilities and then restrict their capabilities so much.

I can see why the doctor would want to look like a human, so patients respond to him better. But he should also be able to like, grow four arms when needed so he can do surgergy on two people at once. Or turn his hands into medical tools. Or levitate and shoot lasers from his eyes.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Why does he even need a nurse? Can't he see out of the back of his head and grab instruments off trays with his third stretchy hand?

 

[Stoo]

Indeed!

Actually. What was that episode where he had to choose between emergency treatment for Kim and some other ensign and was wracked with guilt afterwards? (and had his memories deleted cos he was struggling so much).

He should have been able to save both. Physically he could grow extra holo-hands. And mentally, if his intelligence is a program running on a super-computer I'm surprised he can't multi-task sufficiently.

 

[JanewayRulz!]

This makes me think of a kid in 10th grade biology class who seriously asked the teacher why the 6 million dollar man (Steve Austin) bothered to brace himself with his left hand, while he was pulling something incredibly heavy, up with his right bionic arm. Wouldn't it pull all the muscles in his good arm?

We all went with the teacher at that point.

My serious answer to your question is also his answer why Steve Austin SHOULDN'T brace himself with the normal arm... because super speed would probably injure the patient.

Now, as to why the Doctor doesn't have a third arm... I lay that to simple economics. Too much cgi costs.

The EMH did change his molecular confinement beam 2 or 3 times, once when he dared Tom to strike him, once when he jumped through the glass wall in his office to escape capture and maybe even when Tuvok phasered the criminal holding him captive.

 

[bbjeg]

Maybe he doesn't move fast because you can't work on vital systems like Data moving isolinear chips. I use to wonder why he didn't teleport around the sickbay but, along with stretching arms, this might scare his patients.

 

[Dream]

Because that's Data's skill set, not the Doctor's.

 

[KaraBear]

in all seriousness, if you will tolerate being serious, it's all a matte of programming. The doctor's program is already quite large. Making his hands move faster, or giving him extra hand or adding anythig else on would involve more code which would make the program much larger. This would take up a lot of computer space and also I believe larger programs can be more prone to glitches.

 

[KaraBear]

Maybe he doesn't move fast because you can't work on vital systems like Data moving isolinear chips. I use to wonder why he didn't teleport around the sickbay but, along with stretching arms, this might scare his patients.

that's a big point too. A doctor is supposed to be comforting and reasuring to his/her patients. That was one of the main complaints about the EMH in general, that it had a lousy bedside mannor. Throw in all of these "unnatural" extras like extra stretchy arms and it might freak people out

 

[Stoo]

If Mr-fantastic arms bother people he could just float stuff around with forcefields. It would be like a doctor with telekenisis.

 

[SchwEnt]

Right on. Where are all his holographic super-abilities?

We know he has access to the vast database of all known medical knowledge in his program. This is via his program in the ship's computer.

Along those lines, why would he need to manually use a medical tricorder or access a terminal to do work?

Shouldn't his "brain" be able to directly access sensors and information from the computers? Shouldn't he just already "know" things, rather than having to manually use sensors and computers to input information visually and then process into his program for analysis?

Cut to the chase, feed the bio-bed and tricorder and sickbay sensors directly to his program. No need for the Doctor to use physical sensory input as if he were a regular guy.

 

[MacLeod]

Indeed!

Actually. What was that episode where he had to choose between emergency treatment for Kim and some other ensign and was wracked with guilt afterwards? (and had his memories deleted cos he was struggling so much).

He should have been able to save both. Physically he could grow extra holo-hands. And mentally, if his intelligence is a program running on a super-computer I'm surprised he can't multi-task sufficiently.

Or failing that, put one into a stasis pod. With only having one Doctor it would make logical sense to have at least one stais pod on standby for emergencies.

 

[SchwEnt]

^^^ Stop making sense!

 

[MacLeod]

Well someone has to. Can't let the lunatics completely take over.

Though it was still one of VOY better episodes.

 

[JanewayRulz!]

Speaking of having only one doctor... thats another reason he shouldn't have "killed" the Equinox EMH, just disabled him and reinstated his ethical sub routines.

Hmmm.

Where's the hue and cry over him killing his "brother", a "being" that was mentally savaged by his crew (as much as "our EMH was savaged by Ransom) that Janeway has to deal with over Tuvix?

 

[Melakon]

We've already had our memories of that incident erased by Janeway.

 

[JanewayRulz!]

We've already had our memories of that incident erased by Janeway.

That Biotch!