Voyager's Sickbay

[El Amigo Carlos]

At the Start of Voyager it was heavilly implied that every sickbaystaff member had died excluding the Doctor, hence why later on Tom Paris was forced to become a Nurse even tho he didn't know jack crap about healling and medicine.
And that was the case until Voyager ended. But, multiple times we saw the Doctor acompanie by 3+ nurses at a time which seemed to be quite competent and seemingly didn't need the doctor to do everything yet they would simply dissapear after 10 seconds and then we'd see the Doctor forever alone in te Sickbay.
What's the deal with that?

 

[1001001]

Moving to the Voyager Forum

 

[Kilana2]

That's not true. Tom Paris is trained as field medic. He is not a doctor, but he knows how to do trials and he is able to asses emergencies.

 

[El Amigo Carlos]

He had years of practice on Voyger, he definetely became competent bt as far as I know, he wasn't too good at the start.
He was still useful and competent but a bad Doctor replacement.

 

[Tim Thomason]

At the Start of Voyager it was heavilly implied that every sickbaystaff member had died excluding the Doctor, hence why later on Tom Paris was forced to become a Nurse even tho he didn't know jack crap about healling and medicine.
And that was the case until Voyager ended. But, multiple times we saw the Doctor acompanie by 3+ nurses at a time which seemed to be quite competent and seemingly didn't need the doctor to do everything yet they would simply dissapear after 10 seconds and then we'd see the Doctor forever alone in te Sickbay.
What's the deal with that?

They may have been science technicians who knew even less than Paris about medicine. Maybe they asked to be reassigned after working with the Doctor for no more than ten minutes.

 

[F. King Daniel]

They were all science officers

 

[El Amigo Carlos]

I really doubt that specifically science officers would line up and help the doctor out and appear out of nowhere.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

It's odd that Paris (who only had two semesters of biochemistry on his resume) was appointed a medic whilst Wildman (who was a trained biologist) wasn't, nor were any of the other life sciences officers onboard--not to mention all those who would have undergone the Starfleet Emergency Medical Course (like Worf had).

 

[Sgt_G]

It would have added another member to the cast, with the extra expense of paying the actor/actress. Not to mention that too many people get lost if there's more than six or seven main characters they have to keep trace of.

 

[The Wormhole]

Most likely they are other members of the crew who though they aren't medical officers, do have training as medics. Tom Paris wasn't the only one, just the most qualified to be the Doctor's assistant/nurse/corpsman/whatever.

 

[Tracy Trek]

It's odd that Paris (who only had two semesters of biochemistry on his resume) was appointed a medic whilst Wildman (who was a trained biologist) wasn't,

It's my head canon that she was another assistant to the Dr. since with Tom being chief helmsman, couldn't work in sickbay all the time.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Samantha Wildman was a science officer, yes. Doesn't necessarily mean she was a medical officer.

 

[woodstock]

In reality, they would have pulled at least a couple other personnel (not bridge officers) and started training them, but of course that would inflate the cast too much. That may be who those other "nurses" were, but then why was Tom complaining all the time?

 

[Timo]

Essentially, the EMH as designed is supposed to be a nurse, not a doctor. Pressed to work all on his own, he makes for a competent doctor, and amusingly assumes a bedside manner fitting of a self-important specialist - but said bedside manner is also natural for a laborer who's not supposed to do any bedside to begin with, merely to hand laser scalpels and sonic wipes to the actual practitioners of the healing arts.

That the EMH would need a nurse is probably not just a dramatic conceit for VOY the show, but also a conceit in-universe: everybody agrees he can't function well without a living and breathing companion, but making said his "assistant" rather than his supervisor is also prudent in the situation. Never mind whether Paris can do medicine: he's the right sort of bridge officer to both keep the hologram in line and to help him overcome his many built-in handicaps without undermining his authority, a quality he never imagined having.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Farscape One]

I agree with all of the above post, except the part where the EMH is supposed to be just a nurse. You don't have a program containing thousands of medical databases and the personal experiences of dozens of doctors to be simply a nurse. He was designed exactly as his name says... EMERGENCY Medical Hologram. He is supposed to be a full on doctor but in emergency situations... for example, your medical staff suddenly got ill trying to find a cure for a shipwide disease. The events of TNG's "Genesis" might not have happened if they had an EMH equipped in Sickbay. He would also be quite useful when going to a colony with hundreds of injuries... beaming a bunch up to the ship. The EMH would work the Sickbay patients, while the CMO and other doctors work in a shuttlebay or cargo bay converted into a triage center, like in TNG's "Ethics".

 

[marlboro]

You would think that they would have created some Emergency Nursing Holograms before they moved on to a full fledged doctor.

Or maybe incorporating elements of the Holodeck into sickbay for extreme emergencies.

 

[Tomalak]

What's the line in Caretaker? "I am a short-term supplement to the medical team" or something similar.

Basically a ship like Voyager with a small crew can get away with having just one doctor and one nurse because they have the emergency medical hologram to support them in crisis situations.

He doesn't need to leave sickbay because he's only designed to assist with triage. Good thing for Voyager that Zimmerman overdesigned his hologram.

 

[JonVP]

Couldn't they have just duplicated the EMH program? I remember one episode (Living Witness) where his back-up program was stolen. A whole medical team of EMH's: that would've been cool .

 

[Farscape One]

That was one plot point about that excellent episode that alwsys bugged me. That backup never existed before, and how the hell did those guys steeal it to begin with?

I know it all comes down to 'plot logic', but it REALLY strains credibility. If the episode was not as good as it was, I don't think I could overlook it as much as I do.

 

[Tomalak]

The whole B-story of Message in a Bottle is that it's impossible to replicate the Doctor's programme. But then we find out there's a back up anyway, and in another episode they create a holographic Nazi death camp specialist at the touch of a button.

Couldn't the Voyager crew just copy & paste his programme? Storage space surely wouldn't have been a problem. And they've got a couple of holodecks which can run simultaneously.

I guess the issue might not be the EMH programme, but the Doctor himself. His programme quickly expanded beyond any intended specifications, which might cause all sorts of problems.