Do you like Tom as the medic?
- Thread starter mysticgeek
- Start date
I did not like Tom as a nurse/medic, it offended me a little bit to be honest. I'm a nurse myself and I trained several years to become one, it's not something you just pick up on the side while also doing your actual full time job of piloting the ship, being part of away teams, having senior officers meetings etc.
On the other hand nursing on Star Trek was usually portrayed as being a doctor's assistant, you certainly don't need intensive training for things like:
Doctor: This!
Nurse: *takes two steps to the left to grab a hypospray and hands it to the doctor*
Doctor: That!
Nurse: *presses a single button*
That's not nursing! And having an assistant is not even necessary for Voyager's doctor, he could do it all by himself. He's integrated into sickbay, he should be able to turn things on or off without pushing a button and he could have floating limbs grabbing stuff all over the place, as a hologram he should be able to treat several patients simultaneously without a problem.
The holo doc was in interesting concept but the execution was flawed, most of the time he was written as a quirky humanoid who couldn't leave sickbay and even that limitation was removed with the mobile emitter.
On the other hand nursing on Star Trek was usually portrayed as being a doctor's assistant, you certainly don't need intensive training for things like:
Doctor: This!
Nurse: *takes two steps to the left to grab a hypospray and hands it to the doctor*
Doctor: That!
Nurse: *presses a single button*
That's not nursing! And having an assistant is not even necessary for Voyager's doctor, he could do it all by himself. He's integrated into sickbay, he should be able to turn things on or off without pushing a button and he could have floating limbs grabbing stuff all over the place, as a hologram he should be able to treat several patients simultaneously without a problem.
The holo doc was in interesting concept but the execution was flawed, most of the time he was written as a quirky humanoid who couldn't leave sickbay and even that limitation was removed with the mobile emitter.
They only showed two medical officers in "Caretaker" the humanoid lieutenant commander and the Vulcanoid assistant. Two medics for a crew of 141 (even with the EMH) seems woefully under-staffed to me.
I remember reading somewhere ages ago that the original Enterprise had a medical staff of around 30, for a crew of 430 that would give them one medic for every 14 crew. When creating crew rosters for my own fanfics, this is the calculation I use. Applying it to Voyager would mean the ship should have 10 medical personnel onboard, a mixture of doctors, nurses and techs.
IIRC Tom was originally supposed to be trained to be a field medic, not to assist the Doctor in sickbay which began back in the day when the Doctor was stuck there. Someone had to take care of injured people while on away missions and while he already had a job as a pilot I could see the sense of having someone do double duty...one less person to take on away missions. I would compare it more to an army medic than a physician's assistant. Maybe if Kes had stayed that might have been how they delegated things...Kes in the sick bay, Tom 'in the field'.
However as someone said above it would make sense if everyone was trained in the basics. I used to work at a summer camp and during the training week everyone had to be certified in basic First Aid and CPR and this included the young unpaid counselors in training but even then there was only so much we could do. We also had to have someone there who was a certified EMT and he or she also had an assistant.
Maybe they thought that would be enough since it was only supposed to be a short mission? I know someone decided it wasn't worth having a counselor on board.
Yeah...she probably just wanted to keep her personal reclamation project busy.
It's just a jump to the left
And then a step to the right...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfx8Nc6VKnI
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I never understood Janeway's decision to make Tom the medic. I mean, they have an excellent pilot who they might be depending on for their survival and they send him to sickbay! Imagine if they had been attacked by some alien ship while Tom was in sickbay, reluctantly trying to learn the basics of medical knowledge in a red alert situation.
I mean, there must have been some other blue-shoulder they could assign to sickbay. Why not Wildman?
Fortunately, they did have Our Favorite Ocampa who took over in sickbay so Tom could go back to piloting the ship.
Already from the beginning of the series, I did wonder why the ship had only one doctor and one nurse, especially when Doc Fitzgerald and Nurse T'Prena was killed off during the transport to the Delta Quadrant. There should have been some more medics available but since Voyager's mission to find the Maquis ship should only take a week or two no one bothered to assign more medical personel. A dire mistake, as it turned out.
I mean, there must have been some other blue-shoulder they could assign to sickbay. Why not Wildman?
Fortunately, they did have Our Favorite Ocampa who took over in sickbay so Tom could go back to piloting the ship.
Already from the beginning of the series, I did wonder why the ship had only one doctor and one nurse, especially when Doc Fitzgerald and Nurse T'Prena was killed off during the transport to the Delta Quadrant. There should have been some more medics available but since Voyager's mission to find the Maquis ship should only take a week or two no one bothered to assign more medical personel. A dire mistake, as it turned out.
Paris' story is one of the main lines of the series, actually. When it starts, he's kind of a narcissist, but he learns to grow. Indeed that may be one of the reasons Janeway assigned him to be the EMH's medic - if Paris were forced to work with somebody as disagreeable and rude as the Doctor, it'd inspire him to fight back and be more assertive.
Kind of like how, in Red Dwarf, the computer brought back Rimmer as a hologram to keep Dave Lister company. They fought all the time, but that's what keeps Lister sane on the long voyage.
Kind of like how, in Red Dwarf, the computer brought back Rimmer as a hologram to keep Dave Lister company. They fought all the time, but that's what keeps Lister sane on the long voyage.
No.
He's a flyboy not a nurse.
He's a flyboy not a nurse.
One could argue that Lister was never actually sane, and Holly was 3 million years on his own by the time he came up with the Rimmer plan.
Yes, the series sometimes feels as if it's really a Paris story from start to finish, even moreso than Janeway's story. It was a good role for McNeill, he's lucky he got to play all the different sides of the character. Too bad the creators completely fumbled Travis on ENT.
Who?
Weren't they hunting the Maquis? Seems like a mission with the potential for combat would call for a full medical staff.
Especially in the highly volatile and unpredictable Badlands, even with a ship as nimble as Voyager.
Definitely, just two patients could already be too much for a staff of two if both are critical and how are one doctor and one nurse supposed to cover three shifts anyway?
There should be at least one doctor and two nurses per shift (you always need more nurses than doctors), that means the medical staff should consist of four doctors and eight nurses and that's the absolute minimum, it doesn't even include medical technicians and other staff.
They have less doctors and nurses in the future because the magic medicine is soooo efficient you don't need them.
I liked the idea of Paris being able to do more than fly the ship. Also, when he became the medic, I hoped that would translate into him having some interesting storylines in sickbay. This never happened and that's one of the missed opportunities.
I always thought they should have come away from Equinox with a nurse or other medic. This would have brought two things I would have found interesting. A healer who was morally ambiguous. (something that's been interesting in many medical shows) Also, a qualified non-holographic medic that would have to answer to The Doctor.
Paris could still have been in the mix, but not needing to leave the bridge in a crisis to help The Doctor treat injuries.
I always thought they should have come away from Equinox with a nurse or other medic. This would have brought two things I would have found interesting. A healer who was morally ambiguous. (something that's been interesting in many medical shows) Also, a qualified non-holographic medic that would have to answer to The Doctor.
Paris could still have been in the mix, but not needing to leave the bridge in a crisis to help The Doctor treat injuries.
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