Why Starfleet crews look the same?

[The Salt Umpire]

A discussion on Nurse Chapel:s medical training gave me a tangential idea...on why you'd have to keep crews of matchable physiology aside from such things as oxygen mixture, artificial gravity level, vitamin D stimulation by lighting, etc. would be medical training

why?

Medical staff training would force Starfleet to crew the ships with similar physiologies in order for their maladies & injuries to be treated competently by staff familiar with their species.

At least in the manner with which medical training seems to still be done in the future, a Dr would have to take upteen specialties, each taking months or even a year to treat a really diverse crew OR take frequent sabbatical like Dr M'Benga.

And it's cheaper to hang costumes on the extras than makeup and appliances.

 

[Enterprise1701]

It's a little funny to me when sci-fi and fantasy TV series embrace in-universe diversity but acknowledge significant flaws in the whole gimmick. How is it actually possible for humans or anyone else to live permanently on 26-hour Bajoran days? Is it logistically feasible for humans to tolerate Klingon body odor all the time without making the Klingons change their ways? And how many Vulcans actually want to tolerate the mental burden of non-Vulcans being emotional in their personal space all the time?

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

The bigger the ship/crew, the more accomodations can be made. A ship with 25 doctors can handle more physiologies than one with 5, on a regular basis. Each individual wouldn't be spread so thin and have to specialize in everything.

Any physician handling the unique challenges of doctoring a species with a unique physiology would of course publish their findings for their colleagues to read and learn from, and/or train/communicate with doctors who already have the necessary experience.

 

[Uncle Sock]

How is it actually possible for humans or anyone else to live permanently on 26-hour Bajoran days?

2 hours more snoozy time at night! Problem solved.

On a more serious note: Humans would adapt. There is NASA research about living on Mars, which has an almost 25-hour-day. Conclusion: We'd be fine.

 

[The Salt Umpire]

The bigger the ship/crew, the more accomodations can be made. A ship with 25 doctors can handle more physiologies than one with 5, on a regular basis. Each individual wouldn't be spread so thin and have to specialize in everything.

Whereas the TOS has two with McCoy and M'Benga. And Nurse Chapel. That may be enough for a crew of 435 humans. We only saw Dr Crusher/Pulaski in TNG which limits crew diversity even more.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

Whereas the TOS has two with McCoy and M'Benga.

Only those two were ever seen but a Dr Sanchez (a pathologist?) was also mentioned in That Which Survives.

And Nurse Chapel.

And a number of unnamed background "blue shirts" likely either nurses or "medical technicans".

We only saw Dr Crusher/Pulaski in TNG which limits crew diversity even more.

Also Dr Selar as far as "on screen" doctors. A Dr Richard Hill (specialising in osteopathy) is also mentioned in dialogue in Remember Me and the same episode references a medical staff of nine and implies a staff of at least twelve or thirteen (at least four staff are supposed to be on duty at any given time)

 

[flandry84]

And given Enterprises’ exploratory/scientific mission perhaps there are medically trained researchers etc on board.
Plus as with Tom Paris perhaps some personnel cross trained as field medics.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

I'm glad the EMH (Emergency Medical Hologram) concept has become popular enough that even Commercial Freightors could have one installed as a regular feature.

Rio's SS La Sirena had his own version of the EMH program on board, it was a nice & useful feature to have Holograms for nearly all job roles.

Now with a wide variety of species, having specialist doctors shouldn't be nearly as hard along with the Doctor to Crew Ratio could be enhanced with the regular Doctor/Nurses + Holographic Supplements.

Same with nearly most jobs moving forward.

 

[The Gatekeeper]

Also Dr Selar as far as "on screen" doctors. A Dr Richard Hill (specialising in osteopathy) is also mentioned in dialogue in Remember Me and the same episode references a medical staff of nine and implies a staff of at least twelve or thirteen (at least four staff are supposed to be on duty at any given time)

There was also another doctor in Violations, seen looking after Crusher after she was taken out by the telepathic assault.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

There was also another doctor in Violations, seen looking after Crusher after she was taken out by the telepathic assault.

Doctor Martin, played by Rick Fitts.

 

[drt]

To put things in perspective, there are only around 8-10 doctors (including an anesthesiologist and dentist) for an entire modern carrier battle group of around 7500 personnel. So the 1701 having only two and the 1701-D with 3-4 doctors is within reason.

TUC aside, McCoy never seemed to have issues with alien physiology, so maybe there’s not a huge need for specialists for non-human crew.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

How is it actually possible for humans or anyone else to live permanently on 26-hour Bajoran days?

I never thought about this that much before, but yeah, this would be a problem. Every 13 days, you'd be a day off on your internal clock. (An extra two hours a day = one extra 24-hour day every 13 days.) It would become unfeasible pretty quickly, especially considering you'd be interacting with Starfleet officers from other planets & ships that are on a 24-hour cycle on a regular basis.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

This might be a practical (i.e. non-recreational) use for holosuites/decks: re-setting people's internal clocks. You can experience a certain amount of hours in less time or something.

 

[Rahul]

I mean the human circadian rythm is one topic - where humans should be quite adaptive actually! https://www.nytimes.com/1989/05/24/us/after-130-days-of-cave-life-a-return-to-glare-of-the-sun.html

But yeah - as soon as we start looking at different atmosphere composition/breathing, gravity, radiation - that's when the "aliens as minorities"-metaphor completely falls apart. Which is one of the reasons I've never been a big fan of it anyway.
Aliens are DIFFERENT.