Where is Discovery's CMO?

[cultcross]

I'm all for the "future medical ethics are different" bit. Fuck objective and cold. You get more caring when you care.

You're less effective as a doctor when you can't make objective decisions. You may care more emotionally, but that doesn't translate to better medical decisions. Plus, there's a massive additional issue with confidentiality and conflict of interest, which is spelled out in the show - Stamets' motivation for keeping the side effects quiet is not putting Hugh in an impossible situation.

 

[Ithekro]

Dr. Invisibus Noshou was there each time supervising. Didn't you see, oh right.

 

[GeekUSACarl]

Oh my cock, you did not just say that. .

someone needs to switch to decaf.

 

[Retu]

CMO is in the training room, playing golf.

 

[Tim Thomason]

Dr. Invisibus Noshou was there each time supervising. Didn't you see, oh right.

The Discovery CMO is a Medusan. He's in the box in the back corner of sickbay.

 

[Captain of the USS Averof]

I don’t really care what everyone says, as far as I’m concerned Dr. Culber is CMO and Lt. Stamets is Chief Engineer.

The show makes zero sense if this doesn’t apply.

 

[GeekUSACarl]

I don’t really care what everyone says, as far as I’m concerned Dr. Culber is CMO and Lt. Stamets is Chief Engineer.

The show makes zero sense if this doesn’t apply.

Since we never see chief specific functions, like doling out shift and work assignments, senior staff meetings and such, im not sure how it truly matters, aside from general curiosity it's a big nothingburger.

 

[Ovation]

I don’t really care what everyone says, as far as I’m concerned Dr. Culber is CMO and Lt. Stamets is Chief Engineer.

The show makes zero sense if this doesn’t apply.

I’m sorry, but you’re wrong. Nothing in any of the episodes has occurred that requires one or the other (let alone both) be a “chief”.

 

[The Wormhole]

Another thought I've had on this matter, Discovery's medical staff is pretty large for the size of the crew on the ship. The ship has a crew of 130, this is stated in dialogue on screen, unless a producer has made the claim that line was a mistake. And we known of two confirmed doctors, Culber and the guy looking after the space whale. Assuming Space Whale Guy isn't the CMO, that makes three doctors on board, plus multiple nurses have been seen. Now, for comparison, let's look at Voyager, with a crew of 150, yet it only had a medical staff of two, CMO and one nurse, though they also had an EMH they could call upon, so I guess you could say three. So why does Discovery even have such a large medical staff to begin with?

But Lorca has no security force in his small crew, just the Chief (and perhaps a few goons repurposed from High Dubiosity Physics Reactants Loading duty),

Bah? Aside from Tyler and Landry, other security officers we've seen on Discovery include the redshirt that Ripper killed aboard the Glenn, and Mr Rhys who actually has been seen at the tactical station on the bridge a lot more often that Landry or Tyler have. Plus there's the mysterious Black Badges.

Stamets being chief engineer makes no sense - he's a fungus scientist. He's not going to have a clue about most systems in a starship.

Okay, but if Stamets isn't the chief engineer, who is? Even if Stamets as the fungus expert is given full control of and authority over the spore drive, are we really supposed to believe the chief engineer would not be involved with this at all? At the very least, he/she would have to have some kind of oversight and have authority equal to Stamets. And while I od concede Stamets does wear a science division insignia on his arrowhead instead of engineering, nearly everyone else who works for him on the spore drive has the engineering/security insignia. So either Stamets is the chief engineer or the chief engineer is super chill about a fungus scientist taking up real estate in the engine room, setting up an experimental drive, and appropriating a number of the engineering staff for the project.

 

[cultcross]

We've not met the chief engineer (knowingly) because s/he isn't relevant to the story. That's the great thing about Discovery, the lack of needless role filling. We can assume those roles are filled without having to waste screentime on them.

 

[Ithekro]

The larger number of medical staff maybe tied with the ship being a science vessel and they are conducting a lot of medical experiments, or on standby in case an experiment gets loose.

As for Stamets, he doesn't seem to do anything or perhaps know anything about the warp drives on the ship. Who handles the warp drive, the impulse drives, the power shunts, the food slots? Those were all under Mr. Scott's case on USS Enterprise. Stamets handles the Spore Drive and its related systems...and that's it.

 

[Cyrus]

In a surprise reveal, Lenard McCoy is the CMO of Discovery! Hey its 10 years before TOS after all.

That would be cool. Played by Karl Urban?

Or maybe it would be Doctor Boyce or Doctor Piper

 

[Worf2DS9]

We've not met the chief engineer (knowingly) because s/he isn't relevant to the story. That's the great thing about Discovery, the lack of needless role filling. We can assume those roles are filled without having to waste screentime on them.

It's a little like the Chief Engineer on "The Orville." We've seen him a few times, but he's not remotely a main character. In DSC's case, they haven't shown him/her at all (yet?).

Btw, your Spock avatar in the DSC uniform is pretty cool!

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Or maybe it would be Doctor Boyce or Doctor Piper

Boyce is on the Enterprise right now, isn't he?

 

[Commishsleer]

The much bigger issue is why, if there are other doctors available, he is assigned to treat his partner. There's a big ethical issue there.
But that's TV. The main characters do everything.

Frankly I'd rather have my partner as my doctor than some absent CMO. The only problem I see is when your partner isn't a good enough doctor to treat you. Like when you need a specialist.
Culbert is out of his depth here but so would most doctors.

You'd think thee CMO would have treated the Vulcan Ambassador.

 

[cultcross]

My partner is a doctor - I wouldn't choose to be treated by her for anything remotely serious, and that's not because of her competence. I wouldn't want to put her in that tricky a position. To be someone's wife and their doctor would be very difficult.

 

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

Boyce is on the Enterprise right now, isn't he?

Well, he was, a couple of years ago. We don't know how long he stayed on board after "The Cage"; same for others (besides Spock and Pike). And we don't know how long it was before "Where No Man Has Gone Before" that Piper came aboard.

 

[Timo]

And we known of two confirmed doctors, Culber and the guy looking after the space whale.

Is the latter part of the medical staff, though? Or just a researcher?

Bah? Aside from Tyler and Landry, other security officers we've seen on Discovery include the redshirt that Ripper killed aboard the Glenn, and Mr Rhys who actually has been seen at the tactical station on the bridge a lot more often that Landry or Tyler have.

That's just it, though - Rhys isn't security, but tactical. As with TOS, those are separate branches. And probably always were, except two spinoff shows had a main character serve as a casualty replacement adopting double duty, and a third involved a ship sailing out with a thrown-together crew.

Plus there's the mysterious Black Badges.

Except there's not. What happened to them?

Okay, but if Stamets isn't the chief engineer, who is?

I agree that a CEO would have to appear on the show, and that the absence of such a character is pretty awkward. I mean, we can always pretend we miss those shots where the CEO would appear, just like we always missed Chef in ENT - but the CEO character would have central dramatic value to this particular show, too. Curiously, though, not in the episodes seen so far...

But we could expect the following:

- We need a Q to equip our central action heroes Burnham and Tyler for their more harebrained stunts, and Stamets obviously can't be that.
- Sooner or later, the ship is going to fall apart, and Stamets isn't the man to conduct repairs.
- Stamets ultimately needs to fight somebody over the hardware, not just over command decisions, and fighting Saru is dramatically unsatisfactory, both in the sense of two wet sponges making contact, and in the sense of two science guys arguing without anybody providing the crescent wrench viewpoint.

It's just that stuff like that is for Chief Engineer M'Justa Gueststar, a role dwarfed by the colossal contribution of Assistant Chief Engineer Singh.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[zar]

It seems maintaining the warp drive has always been the chief engineer's main responsibility, but we've seen Discovery use theirs for a total of about 5 seconds over 7 episodes.

 

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

We need a Q to equip...

I read this at first as "we need a Q-tip..."

Must be the medical context.