How big is your Medical Staff?

[Tyjos]

One thing I seem to notice is some of the shows feel like it's just a "One Doctor" show as if anyone of the other medical staff apparently can't do more than stand by and just complain about something else going on.

I've Been Watching a lot of Voyager this past week.


Enterprise seems like Phlox was just the only doctor on board,and Voyager seems like the EMH just was the only main doctor other than Paris and his Medical Training maybe some others possibly. Not sure...guess this is the endless marathons of Star Trek that I've been running lately making me notice these things.

Still the Medical Staff seems to just either be non existent or just not doing anything at all. Seems like the only shows with a good Medical Staff seems to be Star Trek The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine.

Course this thread title makes me think of Star Trek Generations
"How big is your Medical Staff?"
"The Medical Staff? Doesn't arrive till Tuesday."

[Livestick]

Well, Voyager never had a full medical staff in the first place. They didn't think they'd need one because it was a short-term mission. Then those few doctors that they did have were killed. That's why they needed the EMH in the first place. But for the other shows, you're right. The medical staff does seem laughably inadequate.

[DigiFluid]

I always figured that the people we saw on the show were the 'main,' 'day shift' sort of people; that during off-hours, a different group of people were staffing the bridge, engineering, sick bay, and whatnot.

Of course, this doesn't apply in cases like Data or the EMH. But in the 24/7 of being in space, it makes sense.

[Tyjos]

Not like we're going to have a Hospital Drama show going on in Trek, with a large medical staff in Sickbay...though not like that would be interesting....so I guess that's why they cut back on Doctors in Star Trek..."This is a Scifi show, not ER in Space." LOL

But still you'd figure with all the things a ship goes through there would need to be a decent sized medical staff to deal with problems but usually as we see in the moments when they need to Triage they have plenty of volunteers to help out. I guess this goes to assume that with Starfleet Training that every one who goes through the Academy gets a certain amount of Medical Training.

That's the only explanation I can have for the lack of a Medical Staff, is that everyone apparently has enough Medical Training for the Doctor to say "Here's a Medical Tricorder,Scan them, Inject them with whatever with the Hypospray and move on."

[jelgate]

Their are times when real world production affects the believeability (is that a real world) of a TV show. This is one of those times. Its really expensive to hire someone else play a doctor when the already contracted main cast member can do the role. Its similar to why Scotty is the only engineer on the Enterprise

[knowles2]

How many doctors and nurses do they have on navy vessels, it seems to me they have relatively few.

Sometime it as few as one medic per vessel. The Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier will have just eleven medical staff, and 8 beds for 700 crew. One of those staff will be a dentist.

So it not surprising that Voyager only had one doctor and a few nurses, for a crew of 100, about the same a Royal navy vessel would most likely carry.It seems to me that the numbers we saw on TV is realistic and were to the same standards that our own navy uses.

[Starsaber]

Of the main ships in the series, Enterprise NX-1 and Voyager had the smallest crews, so it only makes sense they had the smallest medical staff. The Original Series Enterprise and Enterprise-D both had much larger crews, and we usually saw at least a few more people on their medical staff. DS9 was a space station where ships would go for resupply and repair, so I'm surprised we didn't see a bigger medical staff there. I think it was usually only Bashir on the Defiant, which kind of surprises me, but it wasn't really designed for long-term solo missions, so it'd usually be able to get medical support from other ships in its fleet in case of heavy casualties.

[Crazedwraith]

You realise for VGR they use the EMH and Paris as a nurse because all the medical staff died in the first episode right?

The E-D definitely carried more than just Crusher though. There was Dr Selar who appeared at least once and I think others were implied or mentioned to exist at other times.

[tlw]

Well, on the Original Series, McCoy had nurse Chapel. And there was a Dr. M'Benga (he was a black human doctor that had studied on Vulcan). He was in 2 episodes, maybe 1.

Dr. Crusher had Nurse Ogawa.

[knowles2]

Of the main ships in the series, Enterprise NX-1 and Voyager had the smallest crews, so it only makes sense they had the smallest medical staff. The Original Series Enterprise and Enterprise-D both had much larger crews, and we usually saw at least a few more people on their medical staff. DS9 was a space station where ships would go for resupply and repair, so I'm surprised we didn't see a bigger medical staff there. I think it was usually only Bashir on the Defiant, which kind of surprises me, but it wasn't really designed for long-term solo missions, so it'd usually be able to get medical support from other ships in its fleet in case of heavy casualties.

DS9 nine did show a few nurses and I remember another doctor or two being mention over the cause of the series.

[Starsaber]

DS9 nine did show a few nurses and I remember another doctor or two being mention over the cause of the series.

Yes, but you'd think a Starbase would have a full-up hospital, not just an infirmary.

[Inquisitor]

Is it depressing or refreshing that no jokes have been made about Deep Space Nine and the size of the medical staff?

[blueray]

voyager: as said it was a supposed to be a short mission and all medical staff were killed. I personally think that there were other people who did help out as nurses (other then tom and kes). and plus the doctor doesn't need to sleep .

ds9: yeah I do feel like every time sick bay is shown its just Bashir with an occasional redshirt. I'd imagine there were other qualified doctors especially with him leaving on the defiant so much.

enterprise: yeah, Phlox is the only doctor which is important in the episode where he has to hibernate and they wake him up since no one else can treat Travis. this problem however i think they did fix over the years, since it was never mentioned again and he hibernates every year.

[Snowman37]

TOS: Full medical staff, doctors and nurses, lead by "Bones" McCoy

TNG: Full medical staff, doctors and nurses, lead by Beverly Crusher

DS9: A Cardassian space station with a joint Starfleet/Bajoran crew. I always assumed Doctor Bashir lead a mostly or all Bajoran medical staff. He seemed to be the only Starfleet officer in sickbay, so a Bajoran medical staff lead by a Starfleet doctor makes sense to me.

VOY: 150 people, but one doctor and nurse? The events of "Caretaker" show us why this seems a bit stupid. I don't expect a big medical staff, but why not two doctors and three or four nurses? Space is dangerous, injuries and illness is inevitable.

ENT: 80 people, one doctor. This was more believable given how small the ship is (compared to later shows). Still, it seems a bit retarded for Phlox to not have a nurse. If he's doing surgery, who's going to hand him tools?