Timo said:
You need to remember, though, that the sickbay was not designed to operate with an EMH in charge. The facility was built with human(oid) users in mind, and the tools available to the CMO would be optimized for human(oid) use.
It's a bit similar to how Asimov time and again felt the need to point out that man-shaped robots driving combine harvesters are better than robots that are shaped like combine harvesters - because the man-shaped robot then can drive the tractor and the pickup as well, and dig a ditch and peel the potatoes and feed the cat, something the harvester could not do. Perhaps Starfleet just didn't feel the need to install optimal datafeeds for the EMH program when a man-in-the-loop reading interface would more flexibly serve the usual surgeon - regardless of whether he, she or it was human, Andorian, Antedean or hologram.
Certainly it makes sense that the EMH would need a medical tricorder and a biobed in order to analyze his patient, rather than somehow magically wave his holographic hand over said patient. The holographic form is not very functional - it's just a shape that can at best hold objects. The eyes and ears of the EMH must be elsewhere: in the walls on the sickbay, or in the mobile emitter while in away duty.
Now, an android emergency medic should quite logically have medical tools and sensors hidden in his hands and tongue and whatnot... Such a machine might become Starfleet's standard field medic, being more doable than a mobile hologram yet still being capable of operating on similarly concentrated expertise, and of using the full range of humanoid medical tools. But Data isn't a single-application android, so giving him special tools would be counterproductive. (He's also something of a prototype, of course.)
Timo Saloniemi
