Voyager's "Medical Staff"

Discussion in 'Star Trek: Voyager' started by Dale Sams, Feb 4, 2014.

  1. Dale Sams

    Dale Sams Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    Dec 29, 2012
    A hologram.
    A woman with a very short lifespan
    And the ships helmsman, who really knows only first aid.

    But they sure had a lot of security.

    Seems to me they have their priorities messed up.
     
    Paul Weaver likes this.
  2. bbjeg

    bbjeg Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    May 24, 2013
    Location:
    Right here buddy.
    I have found it odd that the Doctor never found the time to train a staff.
     
  3. exodus

    exodus Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Apr 18, 2003
    Location:
    The Digital Garden
    It takes 4 years beyond a bachelors to earn a PH.D.
    That's close to 8 years total.(It probably takes way longer when you consider you have to learn the biology of every alien species in the crew, not just human. Then what medications they can & can't take and why. So it's more like 10 to 12 yrs now)
    By the time the EMH had trained anybody that far, they'd be home.

    Besides beyond Janeway, B'Elanna, Kes & Seven, nobody else on the ship was smart enough to earn a PH.D any faster.
     
  4. bbjeg

    bbjeg Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    May 24, 2013
    Location:
    Right here buddy.
    I'm sure they could have shorten the standard time it takes under their circumstances, or maybe he could have just trained assistants. Plus, they'll have the best teacher anyone could have.

    And another thing, after the Doctor obtained the mobile emitter, why didn't he use that indefinitely, and create another EMH or nurse? They were just in a shitty situation and sticking with the EMH through the long haul sounds like a risky move. If (when) he was lost, Voyager's out a doctor.
     
    Last edited: Feb 4, 2014
  5. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Apr 15, 2000
    Location:
    In the lap of squalor I assure you.
    Uhura in the Changeling went from blank slate to comms officer in one night.

    I'm guessing that it has something to do with sleep teaching drugs.

    Lets not forget that Khans Superman spent a couple decades interbreeding with mundanes and contaminating the genepool with augment human DNA in secret and then should have created public works towards the topic once they were in charge.

    Augment enhanced humans would have been the least likely to have been pruned when Colonel Green was pruning the species after WWIII to spare the race of crippling radioactive degeneration stumbling the species down to a stop.
     
  6. Bry_Sinclair

    Bry_Sinclair Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Sep 28, 2009
    Location:
    Scotland
    I find it pretty ridiculous in "Caretaker" the ship only seemed to have two medical staff to being with (a doctor and his Vulcanoid nurse) on a ship with 141 crew.
     
  7. MacLeod

    MacLeod Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 8, 2001
    Location:
    Great Britain

    But they didn't know that they would get home in 7 years instead of 70 years.
     
  8. teacake

    teacake Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jan 20, 2007
    Location:
    inside teacake
    I'm sure everybody in Starfleet is trained in advanced superduper first aid, I bet they are all at the level of a paramedic and 3rd year nursing student combined.

    Knowing the EMH he probably doesn't want to share the glory parts of the job.
     
  9. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Apr 15, 2000
    Location:
    In the lap of squalor I assure you.
    Paris was the only nurse because he was the only one with First aid training.

    Voyager was given a 2 week mission, and her Captain put together a crew to fulfil that mission.

    Find out what happened to Chakotay's cell, rescue Tuvok and then find a target with their tricobolt device so that no one can chase them back to Federation Space.

    Who knows how little crew retention Janeway would have decided upon when putting together her next crew for her next 2 week mission which might have needed a completely different collection of skill sets.

    Voyager isn't Picard's Enterprise with fully stocked gold bag.

    Voyager picks one club, and then gets's it's shit sorted before it runs back to a star base.
     
  10. 2takesfrakes

    2takesfrakes Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Oct 13, 2013
    Location:
    California, USA
    Amen, brother! Testify! :rommie:
     
  11. bbjeg

    bbjeg Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    May 24, 2013
    Location:
    Right here buddy.
    ^She's just a natural... a natural in xenolinguistics.

    That doesn't mean they couldn't train someone. They had 70 years ahead of them.
     
  12. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Apr 15, 2000
    Location:
    In the lap of squalor I assure you.
    But they didn't.

    Even if a medical degree would mean a certain bump in rank.

    What about Dee?

    She coasts along with "What's a warp core breech?" in season 5 for years, until she sees Bev in the big chair, and then within hours, she's a fully qualified Engineer and Bridge Officer.
     
  13. bbjeg

    bbjeg Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    May 24, 2013
    Location:
    Right here buddy.
    ^That Year of Hell episode (from Kes' point of view) showed how bad it could be without the Doctor. You'd think Kes would have warned Janeway then about considering training more people.
     
  14. MacLeod

    MacLeod Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 8, 2001
    Location:
    Great Britain
    And of course there was the whole no back-up for the EMH should it fail.
     
  15. c0rnedfr0g

    c0rnedfr0g Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Sep 17, 2008
    Did Tom have first aid training prior to Caretaker? I only remember him saying he had "half a semester of biochemistry" or something like that.

    Anyway, Voyager didn't need more medical staff because Robert Picardo was part of the main cast and wasn't slated to be killed off. They would only have had to worry about it if the actor (heaven forbid) had died during the making of the series, and then maybe they'd have brought in Andy Dick full-time. And they did know they'd get home in 7 yrs, not 70, since TNG had gone 7 yrs and the staff probably didn't envision Voyager running any longer than that.

    :bolian:
     
  16. MacLeod

    MacLeod Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 8, 2001
    Location:
    Great Britain
    ^That's all very welll and good. However in the fictional world you are the Captain of ship with a 70 year journey home and only 1 Doctor and no nurse, would you not think it prudent to say start training someoneelse to fufuil that role, just in case something unforseen should happen to the only 1 you've got?
     
  17. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Apr 15, 2000
    Location:
    In the lap of squalor I assure you.
    Did the Val Jean have a Doctor?

    Caretaker might have accidentally killed the Maquis Doctor, or Chakotay left port without one, which does seem off.
     
  18. Dale Sams

    Dale Sams Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    Dec 29, 2012
    And unless Kes had some kind of special advantage...next to Neelix, she's the LAST person to train.

    "Oh, let's train the alien who has never even seen our species before, and has zero training with our tech."
     
  19. Captain Kathryn

    Captain Kathryn Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Feb 26, 2013
    Location:
    Captain Kathryn
    The nature of their original mission probably required a LOT of security and less medical staff. But yeah the lack of blue-shirts always irked me. Not many science or medical staff members!

    But the EMH is basically a combination of all Starfleet doctors so in essence he is MANY DOCTORS. :lol:

    They really should have triple backed up his program though.
     
  20. bbjeg

    bbjeg Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    May 24, 2013
    Location:
    Right here buddy.
    When it comes to the Maquis, they have to take what they can get. Maybe there wasn't a medically inclined ex-starfleet member (or anyone) that was available.