Why is McCoy still on the bridge in VI?

[willg]

The ship is being battered by torpedoes from a Klingon Bird-of-Prey and you're going to sit there and tell me that there isn't a single casualty on the Enterprise. But, yet there's the ship's medical officer remaining on the bridge and helping Spock perform surgery on a torpedo. I realize that it's a movie and that the director probably just wanted to give McCoy something useful to do but sheesh!

 

[LOKAI of CHERON]

Dr. M'Benga was on call.

 

[Timo]

The last time our heroes faced this foe, McCoy's skills were needed to save an assassination victim. The heroes have every reason to suspect this confrontation will conclude the same way; perhaps there's some logic to keeping McCoy in readiness to accompany the main heroes to the site of the crime?

(Of course, there'd be even more logic to keeping McCoy on standby in a transporter room, surrounded by bodyguards and additional medics...)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[zephramc]

The ship is being battered by torpedoes from a Klingon Bird-of-Prey and you're going to sit there and tell me that there isn't a single casualty on the Enterprise. But, yet there's the ship's medical officer remaining on the bridge and helping Spock perform surgery on a torpedo. I realize that it's a movie and that the director probably just wanted to give McCoy something useful to do but sheesh!

He may have been coordinating the various medical crews and wanted to be on the bridge to get 1st hand information (where the injured were, dangers to medical staff from hull breaches, etc...).

Though why he ran off to reconfigure a torpedo when an engineer would have been better equipped is another question.

 

[sonak]

Why is this instance different from all the other unrealistic instances where he was on the bridge when he should have been in sickbay? Why was he on away teams when he was the chief medical officer? They should have sent nurses.

The answer is that he's a main character.

 

[Timo]

Generally, he did keep out of the bridge and ran the sickbay when the ship was taking casualties in TOS. And if the heroes expected casualties on the ship, they didn't send out landing parties!

ST6 remains a deviation from the norm...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[sonak]

Generally, he did keep out of the bridge and ran the sickbay when the ship was taking casualties in TOS. And if the heroes expected casualties on the ship, they didn't send out landing parties!

ST6 remains a deviation from the norm...

Timo Saloniemi

if you say so

 

[Satyrquaze]

...because its a movie and Dr. McCoy is being played by an actor named Deforest Kelley and the stage directions placed him on the bridge during that scene. The script gave him lines to be delivered from the bridge during that scene as well.

 

[Doug Otte]

I agree w/ the fundamental question, but just wanted to point out that he was somewhere else, not on the bridge, when he fixed the torpedo w/ Spock.

Doug

 

[Amaris]

Because he's Leonard H. McCoy, the most awesome Chief Medical Officer alive, and he can do whatever the hell he pleases.

 

[inflatabledalek]

Because Chang was actually right, McCoy was a complete piss head by this point and so drunk at the climax of the film he actually thought he was in sickbay.

 

[22 Stars]

^ this post makes baby Spock sad...

 

[C.E. Evans]

McCoy isn't the only doctor on the Enterprise. In fact, his skills seemed to lie more in the areas of surgery, psychology, and biochemistry. I'm sure there are other junior doctors on the ship whose specialty are emergency room operations, triage, etc. But if there was a situation in which the Enterprise had a large number of casualties and the medical staff was overwhelmed, then McCoy would be in sickbay in a heartbeat, IMO.

 

[Search4]

In-universe... the last ship battle ended with an assassination. Perhaps the guess this time is that the enemy Klingon's would attempt to beam over to kill Kirk - and McCoy wanted to be at his side if the attempt were made.

 

[MarsWeeps]

The ship is being battered by torpedoes from a Klingon Bird-of-Prey and you're going to sit there and tell me that there isn't a single casualty on the Enterprise. But, yet there's the ship's medical officer remaining on the bridge

He was probably waiting on Scotty to bring another nearly dead crewman to the bridge instead of taking him to sickbay like he did in ST:II.

 

[werner55]

The answer is that he's a main character.

 

[T'Girl]

... so drunk at the climax of the film he actually thought he was in sickbay.

Or in an Argelius cathouse, don't you love the way he grabs that pillar like a lover, and says "This is fun!!!"

 

[James Wright]

If there had been casualties on board the Enterprise wouldn't they be reported to the bridge?

James

 

[Captaindemotion]

For the same reason that Chekov is in the sickbay at the start of Generations.

 

[Captrek]

Chekov is in the sickbay at the start of Generations because DeForest Kelley turned down the role so Koenig got a part that was written for Kelley. Similarly, Doohan got a part that was written for Nimoy.