The Most Disliked Episode of VGR, Season 4: 2021 Edition...

[Vale]

About that, The Doctor is nothing but a computer program, so why not unlimited backups? Sure, a backup is only as good as it's most recent copy, but you could always make a backup of a backup of a backup. I doubt it would be much different than dragging and dropping a file on your PC from one drive to the next.

The computer can emulate several, even many human holograms at the same time then why during crises can't there be more than one Doctor I in the room tapping into the same database and therefore with the same abilities as the first Doctor? IOW, there'd be no need for triage, you could treat all injured people at the same time.[/QUOTE]

The medical database alone would be massive to have The Doctor, never mind tactile files to perform surgery, diagnostic files to... well, diagnose, etc.

I can see why they only have one.

It's possible to have a single database being accessed by multiple applications simultaneously – it's how modern distributed applications work (the sort of things that run out of data centres, etc). Although the database can also be distributed between multiple locations. Admittedly the writers behind Star Trek have never demonstrated a great grasp of the finer details of computer technology...

In "Eye of the Needle" the EMH states that he cannot be downloaded. At the time my headcanon was that he was dependent on the bioneural gel packs for his "lifelike" qualities – his program couldn't run on anything that didn't use them, and was developed specifically using new organic computer technology. This was of course blown out of the water when the Doctor started being freely downloaded into everything from Henry Starling's Windows PC to his mobile emitter to Seven of Nine's implants to being emailed across tens of thousands of lightyears on a semi-regular basis I now feel they rather missed a trick in not having an episode where the EMH was duplicated* rather than transferred – keep one of him in sickbay and one in the mobile emitter and another in the holodeck while a fourth one goes on yet another visit to the alpha quadrant – though I suppose they were worried about multiple duplicate EMHs becoming unmanageable for writers.

*Yes, I know that's a key point of "Living Witness", but we never see it anywhere else, and the duplicate EMHs are never seen to interact.

 

[Oddish]

If the Doc had been able to double himself up, the mess in "Latent Image" could have been easily prevented.
EMH: "Computer, activate backup EMH."
EMH 2 (appears): "Please state the nature of the medical emergency."
EMH: "You need to do a spinal shunt on Ensign Ballard, immediately. I'll take care of Ensign Kim."

 

[Vale]

If the Doc had been able to double himself up, the mess in "Latent Image" could have been easily prevented.
EMH: "Computer, activate backup EMH."
EMH 2 (appears): "Please state the nature of the medical emergency."
EMH: "You need to do a spinal shunt on Ensign Ballard, immediately. I'll take care of Ensign Kim."

That episode always felt out of place to me. It really feels odd that five years in the EMH can experience an existential crisis like this. It would make much more sense as a season two story, maybe even late season one. Janeway's whiplash stance on "the EMH isn't a person and we should treat him like any other piece of malfunctioning equipment for the benefit of the crew" is really odd at that point in the show too.

 

[Oddish]

Janeway's whiplash stance on "the EMH isn't a person and we should treat him like any other piece of malfunctioning equipment for the benefit of the crew" is really odd at that point in the show too.

Given that she separated Tuvix against his will, had Crell Moset's principles applied to B'Elanna against her will, and declined to return Seven to the Collective despite her demands that she do so, I disagree. Right or wrong, Janeway exercised her prerogative as Captain, and made a decision.