Do you like Tom as the medic?

[at Quark's]

I always thought it strange that Paris would be the very best qualified person. I mean, VOY has about 150 crew, let's suppose about two-thirds are from the original voyager crew (which seems reasonable to me, as chakotay's ship seems to have been smaller). So, that's 100 starfleet graduates for you. And not a single one of them, including several science officers, has better qualifications for the job than Tom, who followed two semesters of biochemistry (according to the parallax script)? (And that's not even taking the Maquis into account, who probably had their own emergency situation experiences.)

And that on a ship that posts a guy with five advanced degrees in theoretical cosmology to the plasma relay room, so you wonder what other overqualified (but unwilling) personnel they have wandering around

(Of course the real reason would have been that the writers wanted Paris and the EMH together to make them bicker, just like Neelix and Tuvok.)

 

[Tracy Trek]

In all of the episodes of all of the seasons, did they ever show anyone else helping out in Sickbay other than Tom or Kes? I think I remember one but I'm not sure. Samantha would have been a good choice because she was a biologist, right?

I recall a couple of fanfictions where Samantha is a part time helper in Sickbay. Including one (that I can't find anymore) where the captain is acting irrationally, the doctor is out of commission for some reason. And Tom has to repair someone's severely injured leg (there was a possibility of amputation if it didn't work) with Sam and Neelix as his assistants.

 

[Kilana2]

In all of the episodes of all of the seasons, did they ever show anyone else helping out in Sickbay other than Tom or Kes? I think I remember one but I'm not sure. Samantha would have been a good choice because she was a biologist, right?

How about Tuvix, Lon Suder or Seska......?????

 

[Mytran]

I also seem to recall an episode where there were a couple of blueshirts helping out during a sickbay emergency.

 

[hux]

Let's face facts. Kim should have been put in sickbay immediately and trained up. There were numerous people much better suited to bridge duty than Kim (what was poor old lieutenant Baxter doing all day for example?)

There were very few blue-shirts seen on Voyager (more green than blue if you ask me). The only ones I can think of were Smanatha, Ensign Murphy, Crewman Telfer and Crewman Mitchell.

 

[Drone]

Let's face facts. Kim should have been put in sickbay immediately and trained up. There were numerous people much better suited to bridge duty than Kim (what was poor old lieutenant Baxter doing all day for example?)

I suspect you're well aware of this, but Baxter was Security. I would think Tuvok might put up a fuss in losing him, even on a sporadic basis.

 

[hux]

Baxter was a lieutenant with command experience. As soon as Janeway knew they had a 70 year journey ahead of them, she should have moved personnel around and looked at putting people in areas where they would be most effective (including the Maquis and people like Mortimer Harren).

A more experienced captain would have understood this and began making the necessary changes

Operations was an important role. A more experienced crewman would make sense. If the doctor was lost... they had absolutely no one to take over. A whole team should have been trained up to for that responsibility and Kim should have been given the job of chief nurse.

 

[Drone]

Putting aside the potential/trust Janeway presumably saw in Kim to run Ops, what qualities of his do you think would have made him a competent nurse?