How did Bones join Starfleet?

[Jefferies]

Dr. McCoy was a Lieutenant Commander before he joined the Enterprise. Doing an extras course to become CMO seems a bit over the top to me, as well as a waste of time.

Certainly, in civilian life, today, there is no extra training or anything like that for becoming Chief of Staff at a hospital, as long as you have the highest medical qualification and enough experience, which I’m sure Bones already had (he had been a doctor for over ten years by then). In the civilian system you get interviewed by an executive committee who will decide to give you the job depending on your merit from your previous positions and possibly the research you have done (Bones also had a lot of credit here, having pioneered new treatments). So if this is the case why should Starfleet require their potential CMOs to do an extra course? After all, how would running a sickbay with a staff of maybe two dozen be more complicated than running a large metropolitan hospital with a staff in the hundreds?

Also wouldn’t your suggestion mean that Commanders who become Captains would have to go to Captain school and Captains who become Admirals would have to go to Admiral school? Somehow, I doubt that this is the way it works. Being a good executive isn’t exactly something you can learn in a course anyway.

 

[cooleddie74]

My conjecture is that he graduated from U. Miss. around 2249 then went into an eight-year Starfleet Medical training program where he was commissioned as a junior officer upon completing his training around 2257. From there ensign or lieutenant McCoy was transferred to his first ship or starbase posting in the medical department.

 

[McCoy]

Helpful to anyone?

Originally, the teleplay was titled "Joanna," and was written by D. C. Fontana, the title character being Dr. McCoy's daughter. Later, she was changed to Irina, and Chekov, instead, was made her foil.[1] The original script, as written by Fontana, would have provided much background on McCoy, including an unsuccessful marriage which led him into Starfleet. Fontana's script was so heavily rewritten that she asked her name to be removed from it and replaced with Michael Richards, a pseudonym she also used on the episode That Which Survives. But given Fontana's extensive contributions to Star Trek mythology, and the fact that it provides insight into the McCoy character, many still consider the lost McCoy background story to be canon, even though it never made it to screen. It was later incorporated into the novels Planet of Judgment and Shadows on the Sun. Joanna herself was mentioned in the animated episode The Survivor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Way_to_Eden

 

[Captain Robert April]

I've always thought it made a lot more sense for McCoy to have been a doctor in civilian life, then the divorce, and then run off to Starfleet, six weeks of OCS, and he's off hopping galaxies and curing strange diseases.

In one sense, you really don't want your chief medical officer too steeped in military protocol and tradition, since one of the big responsibilities of that position is, if necessary, relieve the captain of command. An officer who's had it drilled into his head that the captain's orders are to be obeyed without question might have a bit of a problem yanking said captain out of the command chair and confining him to sickbay. In those circumstances, you want someone like McCoy, who doesn't give a crap how much braid you've got on your sleeve.

As said above, though, with this new movie, who the hell knows anymore...

 

[darkshadow0001]

Do we have any information on how Bones joined Starfleet?

Personally, I always had the impression he was commissioned after he had been a doctor for some time. This also led me to believe that he never attended Starfleet Academy but went to a civilian medical school.

However, some of the promotional images released for the new movie show the new actor playing McCoy in a cadet’s uniform along side the actor playing Kirk, who is also in a cadet’s uniform. People seem to be speculating that both attended the academy together.

Aren't they "recreating" this movie from TOS? From the looks of it, the film is not going to be totally identical to TOS.

I just read from www.startrek.com that Bones was a Lt. Commander before accepting the medical position that Kirk gave him. So, under this advisement, I don't have a problem with McCoy being a cadet in this film.

 

[A beaker full of death]

But becoming a cadet? I’m a medical student and the idea of an experienced doctor or surgeon serving as a lowly recruit sounds unrealistic to me. ...
Shouldn’t they have some kind of provisional rank maybe? I just can’t see how a first year ensign could be their superior. One would think Starfleet would value their skill and ability more highly.

What are you talking about? Doctors and lawyers get commissioned as officers.

 

[A beaker full of death]

Yes, perhaps they all wear the same uniforms in the Academy, but with different insignia. Can you tell from any of the pictures so far if that may be the case?

wtf? Doctors don't go to the academy.
​

Jefferies;2194975]
Actually, this is what I thought had originally happened to McCoy. But the fact that we now have pictures of him in a cadet's/trainee's uniform being toured around with undergrads seems to suggest he was in a more extensive programme which put him at a lower level in the hierarchy.

We now have pictures??? What, did they dig up De Kelley?
McCoy as a cadet would be a neat trick, since TOS specifically said he didn't go to the academy.
Christ, I wish modern Trek had been written by people who had a clue, as TOS was.

My conjecture is that he graduated from U. Miss. around 2249 then went into an eight-year Starfleet Medical training program where he was commissioned as a junior officer upon completing his training around 2257. From there ensign or lieutenant McCoy was transferred to his first ship or starbase posting in the medical department.

Your conjecture is explicitly and impliedly contradicted throughout the show this forum is devoted to.

I've always thought it made a lot more sense for McCoy to have been a doctor in civilian life, then the divorce, and then run off to Starfleet, six weeks of OCS, and he's off hopping galaxies and curing strange diseases.

That's because you have a clue.

 

[Super Grover]

Some of the Doctors in M*A*S*H were civilians physicians that had been drafted and given officer's comissions after their basic training.

 

[TheChronicOne]

Nice topic.

McCoy is one of my favorites. He is witty, blunt, and no BS about him.

He had many excellent one liners and was always an excellent advisor to Kirk; an excellent counterpart to Spock. You could always tell there was genuine respect between Spock and McCoy despite the cutting up...

 

[Red Ranger]

I always thought McCoy was a civilian doctor before joining Starfleet, then received special training he wouldn't have gotten as a resident on Earth. As some of you suggested, that would include courses on alien biology, treating coolant leaks, pressure injuries when a bulkhead blows, things of that nature. Another course physicians would have to take but wouldn't be covered in medical school are first contact protocols.

I was also under the iimpression that he didn't serve as a cadet on a four-year program, but some officers' training course of shorter duration, a year or so perhaps. The fact that McCoy didn't know what the word "dunsel" meant, or that we never saw him take the helm or assume any other station, I think tends to prove that.

Although who knows what new backstory they plan to give McCoy in the new film.

As we have seen in the modern incarnations of ST, at least two of the CMOs seemed to have gone to the Academy like any other officer: Crusher and Bashir. We know Crusher has taken the bridge officer's test and knows how to command a ship. And we say Bashir take the helm of the Defiant, so we at least know he received flight training at the Academy.

I'd say there are probably two tracks for doctors in ST, perhaps even in the 23rd century: (1) civilian doctors, who join Starfleet, receive special training to serve on starships, and according to their experience can serve, once commissioned, as CMOs; or, (2) like Crusher and Bashir, receive their medical training via Starfleet, along with some starship operations training, and then work their way up through the ranks before becoming CMOs, or receive a lower-level CMO posting, as Bashir did in DSN.

And before you nitpickers reply, "Well, modern ST got it wrong. That's not the way it's done today," bleh, bleh, bleh, I say, fie! Remember, it's the future, where they're likely to do a lot of things differently!

Red Ranger

 

[Timo]

Also wouldn’t your suggestion mean that Commanders who become Captains would have to go to Captain school and Captains who become Admirals would have to go to Admiral school? Somehow, I doubt that this is the way it works. Being a good executive isn’t exactly something you can learn in a course anyway.

I'm pretty sure this is exactly what does happen in Starfleet, and it does happen in real-world militaries as well. We have seen/heard of the courses taken by commissioned officers Saavik and Ro, apparently related to their progress towards command positions. On the other hand, we have seen that staff can broaden out by taking cross-training: medical staff like Crusher and Troi can obtain qualifications for menial jobs like standing bridge watches by taking simple courses, Security arranges courses for those wishing to boost the force, there are basic engineering and piloting courses for specialists like Bashir, and so forth.

Since Starfleet seems to like doing basically all its training in "The Academy", including courses for enlisteds (see bits of O'Brien backstory), it would hardly be unexpected to see McCoy in training there at some point, too.

Of course, we may also argue that Roddenberry's idea of all his heroes being "astronauts" has some remaining merit. Even if you are a civilian researcher, you still have to train for the better part of a year for a space mission today. And service aboard a 23rd century starship might still be close to service aboard a space shuttle, even if it has many elements of service on a ship at sea. A MD might well need to spend more than just a couple of weeks at a military training facility in order to be allowed to do his practice aboard a starship.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[BillJ]

Guess I'm outvoted. But to try to compare the job a doctor does in Starfleet to a modern day Army medic or the administrator at City General is apples and oranges.

A City General administrator can't go out and relieve the mayor or chief of police of duty.

An army doctor doesn't deal with dozen and perhaps hundreds of different species. Hell, we send a kid to school for a dozen years to become a doctor now dealing with just human anatomy. What will be the standard when said doctor has the know the anatomy of a dozen different species he co-exists with on a starship/starbase?

Perhaps he didn't go to Starfleet Academy... but I bet that there is probably a very similar college at Stafleet Medical (which still requires years of training).

 

[Jefferies]

The idea of having one doctor being able to treat all kinds of aliens has always seemed unrealistic to me. No one can know that much. But, hey, it’s a TV show. If they had a different doctor for every alien of the week it would be kind of annoying. It’s like on House, where every doctor seems to be capable of performing every known medical procedure, regardless of the actual specialty.

The point is, medicine, today, is a vast and complex discipline. You go to medical school for 4 to 6 years depending on the country. However, after that you aren't free to go and treat any illness out there. Your training continues on the job and eventually you specialise and become an expert in a small area of medicine. In fact most medical training and education happens in the clinical setting not in some lecture theatre. You learn by practicing, through supervision and by watching the experienced doctor's. Medicine, even today, in the age of "evidence based” medicine, is something of an art that can only be learnt through application and practical experience.

I strongly doubt this has entirely vanished by the 23rd century, learning by doing trumps learning by listening and reading. This doesn’t mean your education is over. Bones had finished med school by the time he joined Starfleet. I'm certain that, if as a result, he had to re-specialise this would not happen through a course, it would happen through learning on the job. But he would still have to study, it’s the whole thing of what being a doctor is all about – studying and learning until you retire.

I don’t want to be patronising or anything but the belief that you should learn everything through a course at university is a clear overestimation of academic teaching.

 

[Lieut. Arex]

The idea of having one doctor being able to treat all kinds of aliens has always seemed unrealistic to me. No one can know that much.

He's on a ship which has a computer containing the total knowledge of the Federation. All he has to do is be able to apply that information not know it.

That said, no doubt doctors at 23rd century med schools get some basics in xenobiology and comparative anatomy with closely aligned UFP member species. After all, they're the tip of the spear in treating some Tellarite tourist who eats something that disagreed with him or too much of something that did.

 

[MadBaggins]

Yes, perhaps they all wear the same uniforms in the Academy, but with different insignia. Can you tell from any of the pictures so far if that may be the case?

wtf? Doctors don't go to the academy.
​

Jefferies;2194975]
Actually, this is what I thought had originally happened to McCoy. But the fact that we now have pictures of him in a cadet's/trainee's uniform being toured around with undergrads seems to suggest he was in a more extensive programme which put him at a lower level in the hierarchy.

We now have pictures??? What, did they dig up De Kelley?
McCoy as a cadet would be a neat trick, since TOS specifically said he didn't go to the academy.
Christ, I wish modern Trek had been written by people who had a clue, as TOS was.

My conjecture is that he graduated from U. Miss. around 2249 then went into an eight-year Starfleet Medical training program where he was commissioned as a junior officer upon completing his training around 2257. From there ensign or lieutenant McCoy was transferred to his first ship or starbase posting in the medical department.

Your conjecture is explicitly and impliedly contradicted throughout the show this forum is devoted to.

I've always thought it made a lot more sense for McCoy to have been a doctor in civilian life, then the divorce, and then run off to Starfleet, six weeks of OCS, and he's off hopping galaxies and curing strange diseases.

That's because you have a clue.

Why are you being so rude?

 

[Jefferies]

He's on a ship which has a computer containing the total knowledge of the Federation. All he has to do is be able to apply that information not know it.

That said, no doubt doctors at 23rd century med schools get some basics in xenobiology and comparative anatomy with closely aligned UFP member species. After all, they're the tip of the spear in treating some Tellarite tourist who eats something that disagreed with him or too much of something that did.

I am sure that in the future computer aids will play a much more important role than they do now.

However, having said that, in order to practice medicine, you need to do better than looking things up. We have books today and the internet and they are fine for research and such or looking up the occaisonal perscription dosis, but if you need to refer to them in order to perform your daily job, you are, in all likelihood, incompetent and at great risk of harming your patients. You are meant to know the medicine you practice. The risk of error is simply too high otherwise. Knowledge is one thing, but, as I have been trying to point out, medicine requires experience.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to say that doctors know everything. There are grey areas when they have to make educated guesses or make decisions on cases where they do not have all the possible experience. But, what you are suggesting is ethically inacceptable for the practice of medicine.

 

[maryh]

But didn't McCoy say in "Journey to Babel" that I've never operated on a Vulcan before. Oh I know all the anatomical types, the phsiology but to actually operate on one...."

That is not word for word but close. It does demonstrate that physicians of that era probably could not be experts and experienced in ALL aliens anatomies. They would have to do some learning and research on their own, like McCoy did, should they encounter something they have no experience with. Wasn't he cautious to even deliver a baby in "Fridays Child" because he didn't know these aliens anatomy? Seems like it would happen frequently for a ship "Seeking out new life and civilizations...".

I wouldn't call it unethical, rather I'd call it necessary.

 

[Jefferies]

But didn't McCoy say in "Journey to Babel" that I've never operated on a Vulcan before. Oh I know all the anatomical types, the phsiology but to actually operate on one...."

That is not word for word but close. It does demonstrate that physicians of that era probably could not be experts and experienced in ALL aliens anatomies. They would have to do some learning and research on their own, like McCoy did, should they encounter something they have no experience with. Wasn't he cautious to even deliver a baby in "Fridays Child" because he didn't know these aliens anatomy? Seems like it would happen frequently for a ship "Seeking out new life and civilizations...".

I wouldn't call it unethical, rather I'd call it necessary.

Well, in the case of unknown aliens there was no previous knowledge or experience that he could have had. The fact that he is cautious and reluctant tells you that he is uncomfortable with the situation, as he should be in the very least! Furthermore, a complication free delivery of a baby, tends to be a non-medical event that doesn't really require a doctor to do much, apart from cutting the umbilical cord and making a physical assessment of the neonate. So, I think McCoy was in the clear. Also, he actually, had previous medical dealings with the species in Friday's Child, the Capallans, before the episode.

However, his nonchalant attitude towards Spock’s operation always bugged me a bit, but as I have pointed out, for realisms sake, they should have different doctors for different species. I know this was not done anywhere on Star Trek as it would be a problem for the dramatic story telling (a new doctor in every second episode, although the EMH and Bashier were a good way around this problem).

But the fact remains: do no harm. If you don’t know what you are doing this becomes a major risk. So, in that event, don’t practice medicine. Period. Assuming you have no medical training, would you, personally, treat someone “medically” who happened to present with a medical emergency while you’re around? Would you seriously consider doing that? Hopefully not, you would dial 911. And if you couldn’t dial 911, you would probably have to let the person die, because you wouldn’t know what to do. It’s the same with doctors who try to apply something to a situation they know nothing or little about, in fact they are at risk of making it worse (for example, giving meds that could have unknown effects etc.). Ideally, medicine is about knowing, not about trail and error.

I know, I am probably taking it overboard with the realism here. Star Trek just isn’t that realistic. I just felt I needed to underline the fact that medicine is not something you can do by consulting a manual or making a good guess. Experience and training in the area of medicine in question is necessary. Without it nothing can be done, its like trying to find your way at night by poking in the dark.

 

[Captain Robert April]

Are y'all forgetting about Dr. M'Benga? McCoy was the chief surgeon, but he wasn't the only doctor on board.

 

[Jefferies]

Good point Captain April, M'Benga was a good attempt at trying to address the concern I am mentioning. However, he only spent about a year on Vulcan so that wouldn’t really make him a specialist. It certainly wouldn't give him the credentials to operate. But it would probably be enough to qualify him to practice basic Vulcan medicine.