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File Update: Delta Quadrant Addendum
Report by Kathryn Janeway, Commanding Officer, U.S.S. Voyager
While our "doctor" is indeed an Emergency Medical Hologram
pressed into service, his ongoing evolution due to his adaptive programming
compels me to open this file entry to catalog his numerous contributions
to our crew.
File Update: Delta Quadrant Addendum
Report by Commader Chakotay, First Officer, U.S.S. Voyager
Our ship's Doctor is a holographic figure - an emergency medical program
devised by Starfleet programmers. When the ship's doctor and entire
medical staff were killed in the "Caretaker's" displacement
wave, the Doctor by necessity became the resident physician aboard the
U.S.S. Voyager, assisted by first Paris and then Kes, a quick study in
medical training. The program's first statement upon activation
is usually "Please state the nature of the medical emergency";
the automatic command was altered to allow his own creativity, but the
Doctor preferred the known opening to creating his own more clever and
personable lines. Initiation is automatic upon red alert status;
the program is usually set for high magnetic cohesion, but it can be lessened
to a mere image.
For security's sake in a crisis it carries its own power grid separate
from the nominal ship's Holodeck system. His wide array of programming
has allowed him to keep Neelix alive with hologrpoahic lungs, save the
Vidiian hematologist Danara Pel via a temporary holographic body, and
even to alter DNA so as to remerge Torres' human and Klingon halves, reform
Paris and Janeway from their retro-evolution as amphibians, and ensure
the safety of Wildman's human-Ktarian baby at birth. The AK-1
program indeed makes the Doctor is a genius when it comes to medicine,
but his bedside manner leaves something to be desired - although he has
already come far since he was first the joke and then the bane of the
USS Voyager crew. In fact, it's harder to tell what's evolved more:
the Doctor's own self-respect, or the respect he's given by his colleagues
- with thanks on both counts largely due to his surprise assistant, Kes
- though he still rubs Torres the wrong way and usually can't stand Neelix.
Prodded by her and the simple needs of their predicament, Janeway has
seen to it that not only is the Doctor accorded more briefings and updates,
but he can now turn himself off - a small matter until seen in the light
of independence.
Thanks to various crisis - as when Harry's Holodeck program began "devouring"
the crew and later, the Doctor has even ventured from his familiar and
all-but-mastered medical world to real-life adventures and even fear and
heartbreak outside Sickbay. Also at Kes' urging he has considered a host
of names but most recently has tried "Schmullus," the uncle
of Vidiian hematologist Dr. Danara Pel whom he saved and actually fell
in love with, leaning on Paris and Kes for romantic advice. The
experience even prompted the Doctor to open his own personal log on SD
49504.3, to learn to dance, and to borrow Paris' holo-program for "parking"
in an archaic '57 Chevy ground vehicle on Mars. Due to the
memory circuit degradation of extremely close kinoplasmic radiation, an
EMH malfunction occurred ca. SD 48892.1 caused by a feedback loop between
the Holodeck computer and the doctor's program, which was running a holo-novel
at the time to "relax" at the captain's suggestion. No
one was affected but the program itself, which was being convinced that
it was its human lead programmer, Dr. Lewis Zimmerman, amid a holographic
study simulation of a battle-damaged ship and crew.
Apart from the clinical and statistical notes on parenting, he felt
unqualified to help Kes with her decision on motherhood, but she still
picked him as an absent parental figure to perform the rolisisin pre-mating
ritual. He in turn took her advice to make himself sick, literally,
to better empathize with patients; his resulting holo-version of Levodian
flu lasted a day longer than he'd intended thanks to Kes, and I think
he "learned" a helpful lesson in patience.
File Update: Stardate 50500
Report by Captain Kathryn Janeway
I never would have believed it, but our "Doctor" now has more
memory and, thanks to the 29th century, is confined to Sickbay no more.
It is taking some getting used to, but he has only rarely been troubled
by glitches in the self-powered armband mobile emitter he wears after
the time-stealing technocrat Starling "donated" it to us.
Despite the scare he gave us when his memory overloaded and degraded,
I see no harm in continuing to allow and encourage his exploration of
humanity -- as long as it does not endanger the crew's security and B'Elanna
assures me we have the technical support to allow it. I admit
I was skeptical when we took the chance of initializing his memory and
then used the diagnostic program to add more, but I would hope -- La Boheme
divas aside -- that these experiences to come will have a mellowing effect
on his personality subroutine, which can only aide the crew on our very
long journey.
We could not get along without him, and I owe him my life more than
once - including his daring mix of diplomacy and tactics to retrieve the
Vidiians' antidote to the virus which quarantined Chakotay and myself
on a world to be left behind. His idea to emit holographic support
ships proved promising, but I must add that I especially commend his defense
of the ship with Crewman Suder against the Kazon-Nistrim, and against
the macrocosms which we subdued together. And while I opposed
his choice, I will always remember and respect his citing of the Hippocratic
Oath to "do no harm" when I made the difficult decision to deintegrate
the entity Tuvix into its original patterns for Tuvok and Neelix.
The sum total of all these actions increasingly only leads me to examine
our preconceived notions of life and learning.
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