| THE DOCTOR
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| THE DOCTOR
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E.M.H. = M.D.2
The title is wordplay on the famous formula E = MC2 (energy equals mass times the speed of light squared). Here, E.M.H. stands for Emergency Medical Hologram; M.D. stands for Medical Doctor.
 [Star Trek: First Contact] |
Some Federation starships have available an emergency medical hologram (EMH) program, intended to act as a short-term supplement to medical personnel in emergencies, and accordingly is limited to areas equipped with holographic projectors (a.k.a. holographic emitters), i.e. sickbay.
Pictured left: The EMH of the USS Enterprise-E activated by Dr Crusher during the Borg invasion in 2373 to buy time for fleeing personnel [Star Trek: First Contact]. |
 The EMH was confined, until [#50 and #51 Future's End] to sickbay and the holodeck. [#17 Projections] |
 (hologram of) Dr Lewis Zimmerman (with Torres behind him). [The Swarm] |
The EMH manifests itself in human form, in the identical image of its designer Dr Lewis Zimmerman at the Jupiter Station. Lt. Reginald Barclay was a member of Dr Zimmerman's development team [#17 Projections]. |  Lt. Reginald Barclay |
 Activation of Voyager's EMH [Relativity] |
The first time Voyager's EMH was activated in the presence of the new captain, Kathryn Janeway, was in 2371 (stardate 48315.6), also in the presence of Admiral Patterson [#118 Relativity]. This was prior to the launch of Voyager on the mission to find a missing Maquis vessel commanded by Chakotay. That Maquis vessel also had Tuvok, Janeway's security officer, on board working under cover.
In [#35 Lifesigns] the Doctor states that he was first activated on stardate 48308. |
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 The Doctor deactivates his program 183Kb. |
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| animation and soundfiles from [#60 Darkling] | ||||||
The EMH is programmed with information from 2,000 medical references and the experience of 47 physicians [#3 Parallax] plus over five million surgical treatments/techniques [#8 Ex Post Facto], [#118 Relativity] with contingency options and adaptive programs [#8 Ex Post Facto]. The program contains over 50 million gigaquads of data [#3 Parallax] and is equipped with the medical knowledge of over 3,000 cultures [#3 Parallax], [#35 Lifesigns], [#118 Relativity]; this includes knowledge of the medicine wheel, used by Chakotay's tribe [#13 Cathexis]. By stardate 49504.3 (the date of the inaugural entry in his personal log) the Doctor had performed 347 medical exams, healed 11 compound fractures, and carried out 3 appendectomies [#35 Lifesigns]. The EMH also has an integral universal translator [#107 Gravity].
| People requiring the EMH's attention order the ship's computer to activate the EMH; the EMH appears in sickbay with the words "Please state the nature of the medical emergency," and people are expected to de-activate the program in the same way when they no longer need it or leave sickbay. However, the EMH is automatically activated by a red alert [#17 Projections]. |
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The EMH program's full name is EMH program AK-one, diagnostic and surgical subroutine omega three-two-three.
However, Voyager's Doctor has considered taking a name so that he can feel more fully the sentient being he feels he is. Among the names he has considered are Benjamin Spock and Jonas Salk (both in [#8 Ex Post Facto]). In [#63 Before and After], in Kes' alternate future we find he has taken the name Dr Van Gogh, and in the alternate future of the final story [#171 and #172 Endgame] he has taken the name Joe (his bride Lana's grandfather's name). On stardate 48693, in [#12 Heroes and Demons], he assumed the name Dr Schweitzer but, on the death of the holocharacter Freya in the simulation of the epic saga 'Beowulf', which was the scene of his first-ever away mission, the Doctor dropped the name. In [#37 Deadlock], when USS Voyager was duplicated, the Doctor asked the Kes from the other ship whether the other Doctor had a name. In [#46 The Swarm] the Doctor's program suffered a level 4 memory fragmentation. The disruption to his memory circuits made him forget that he had no name and he demanded that Kes should tell him his name, calling it "ridiculous" her statement that he does not have a name.
The Doctor's program does not contain the abililty to cry [#31 Threshold]. But when he first saw he saw Puccini's "Tosca" on the holodeck sobbed throughout the entire Third Act - he could do this because Torres enhanced his emotional subroutines "so that I could truly appreciate the performance.", which he explains in [#148 Imperfection].
| The animated screenshot shows a security forcefield, but the Doctor can walk through any Voyager forcefield such as that erected to contain the sterile atmosphere required for surgery. |
 Voyager's original Doctor [#1 and #2 Caretaker] |
In 2371 Voyager's Doctor was killed by the Caretaker's displacement wave which transported the ship 70,000 light years from Federation space into the Delta Quadrant, from where it was calculated it would take them approximately seventy years to return home. Accordingly Ensign Kim activated Voyager's EMH to deal with casualties caused by the displacement wave.
|  [#1 and #2 Caretaker] |
Because of the loss of the human medical staff, Captain Janeway informed the Doctor [Eye of the Needle] that he should consider himself a member of the crew and gave him the ability to turn his program on and off. At first the Doctor's bedside manner was disliked by many of the crew, notably Tom Paris. The Doctor has gradually gained the right to control many other aspects of his program, and as his program is adaptive he has expanded it to improve himself or simply to develop as a person by, for example, pursuing an interest in opera. Torres, the chief engineer, maintained his program, a job also later taken on by Seven of Nine.
 Kes |
The ship's nurse was also killed by the Caretaker's displacement wave. Kes, an Ocampa (a species native to the Delta Quadrant) who joined Voyager during the [#1 and #2 Caretaker] adventure, became the Doctor's assistant. She exhibited a talent for medicine and proved eager to learn. She replaced a reluctant Tom Paris in this role, but he took up the role again when Kes left Voyager at the end of [#70 The Gift]. |  Tom Paris |
 The Doctor often carries a portable medical kit outside Sickbay. [#148 Imperfection] |
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In 2374 the Doctor incorporated Jungian therapy (psychiatric treatment based on the theories of Carl Gustav Jung) into his psychiatric subroutine [Retrospect].
Another of the Doctor's "skills" is seen in [#170 Renaissance Man]:
 The Doctor, who is impersonating Torres, gets past Tuvok by running up the wall, across the ceiling and down again. On his way across the ceiling he grabs Tuvok's phaser. (pop-up window) [#170 Renaissance Man] |
Next page: Emergency Medical Holographic channel, Diagnostic program for the EMH, Hobbies, EMH backup module
