The other day I was thinking about the EMH. When he said "The MEDICAL Tricorder" I thought, later on when he wanted to leave sickbay: Why would the EMH ever need to leave sickbay?? With quantum physics in mind, wouldn't a medical Tricorder work remotely though subspace and he could diagnose even away teams remotely from sickbay? Same would be for some simpler treatments, would not those tools work though Subspace as well? For more several cases, the patients would be beamed directly to sickbay. Has anyone else thought of this?
A question about the EMH and why he would not need to leave the Sickbay
- Thread starter TrekkieRiker
- Start date
Even if the instruments did work at the same capacity at long range, diagnosis is only one part of the job.
"EMH to away team. I've scanned Simmons, and they have a punctured aorta. They'll be dead in three minutes. EMH out."
Prior to the nuTreks of the last decade or so Star Trek had not really been keen on networking their "synth's," to use the modern terminology. While Data was shown, on occasion, networking with the ship's computer it was the exception and not the rule. The same with VOY's EMH. Although in the EMH's case it is somewhat more incredulous that he not be networked at all times with the main computer since he is basically an avatar of the onboard medical systems. The EMH should not have to use any external diagnostic equipment, with the exception of perhaps the more precise biobed arch, because the ship's internal sensors would be more powerful than a tricorder and he would have access to them at all times. It doesn't really make for good storytelling dialogue though if the EMH is basically a God within his realm of sickbay and just stares at people blankly, instantly knows what's wrong, and starts treatment with no discussion.
I don't think subspace works like that, such that you could stick your hand into subspace and have it come out somewhere else.
Medical practice also involves psychology and comforting patients. The " human touch," or bedside manner, is part of being a doctor, as the Doctor learns over time.
The EMH was conceived as a backup for an actual doctor, and therefore it wasn't figured by his designer that he would have to leave sickbay.
However, most holograms are designed for very limited use, but the EMH had to have enormous capacity to learn and adapt. This allowed him to evolve far beyond his creator's intent.
However, most holograms are designed for very limited use, but the EMH had to have enormous capacity to learn and adapt. This allowed him to evolve far beyond his creator's intent.
I don't think internal sensors were medical tricorder quality throughout the whole ship
We've seen several instances where the transporters were offline, and people were too wounded to come to sickbay themselves. In that case, it would be convenient if the EMH could leave Sickbay and go to that location. It wasn't for nothing they were trying to set up holographic projectors on the Bridge in some episodes, and the Mark 2 on Prometheus having access to some areas beyond Sickbay as well.
I think his 'mission parameters' also were relatively modest because the EMH was the very first generation of medical hologram. Already, the EMH mark 2 seemed to have been a slightly more ambitious design.
I think his 'mission parameters' also were relatively modest because the EMH was the very first generation of medical hologram. Already, the EMH mark 2 seemed to have been a slightly more ambitious design.
I'd say they are.. and more.
Internal ship sensors effectively can scan for a host of parameters that probably tricorders don't or can't.
Then again, even ship sensors aren't always programmed to scan for EVERYTHING... in TNG we know the sensors tend not to scan for a few things unless the computer is explicitly asked to do that - and we know even Tricorders can be modified to scan for other things.
So, in regards to overcoming some limitations pertaining to medical treatment in the early years (before the EMH could leave sickbay) a remote scanning option to create a diagnosis and then wait for the patient to be brought to the EMH for treatment could actually be an effective solution.
If the injured person can be transported back to the ship to undergo treatment, the EMH could technically use the time that's used for transport to devise a better treatment for the person in question.
Obviously in cases where transporters work, then this is a moot point since they will be beamed back to the ship immediately.
However, for away missions that a doctor wasn't needed or couldn't be there, a remote diagnosis and having the crewmen perform treatments in the field with remote assistance from the EMH is still a viable option.
I'd argue that the near universal use of the hand scanner with the medical tricorder suggests that extreme precision is required for medically useful scans.
So while it might theoritically possible to use the main sensors for some basic functions, using them for complex medical scans is likely to be a sub-par option in time critical situations, which are the main situations that you might otherwise need to use them in that role.
Haven't there been a few cases where supposedly transporters couldn't be used because the condition of the person to be transported was too critical? (I don't mean 'transporter can't lock on because target is in temporal flux!'-cases. And yes, I know, we've seen a lot of apparently extremely critical cases beamed up over the years too, but still).
I seem to remember there are a few instances of that, but I can't remember which episodes. Or am I mistaken and is it something my mind just made up?
I would pin the near constant use of tricorders is due to us seeing them used on away teams to analyse what's happening in the environment.
Those use cases are where we see Tricorders used most after all.
Still, even in the case of sickbay cases, one can usually see the doctors using medical tricorders to scan a patient by hand.
Though, there's nothing stopping SF from programming the internal sensors from doing a full sensor sweep with all parameters on a person when they step through the sickbay door. It would be like a full spectral analysis and the results are parsed and sent to the doctor's station for analysis.
I guess the main reason they don't do this is because they don't fully automate a lot of things they could actually automate, and to keep things 'familiar' to the viewer.
And its possible that Starfleet didn't want to entirely remove the 'human touch' from the equation when it comes to bedside manner, etc.
Besides that, the main sensors have been shown to be able to analyse complex medical situations. When Kes returned to VOY in season 6 she went to the past. Tuvok started experiencing flashes of the future and because this impacted him severely at unpredictable times, Janeway asked the computer to keep a continuous scan on Tuvok with ALL sensor parameters and they managed to catch what was causing it (despite the Doctor not being able to find any specific cause even with his 'specialized' equipment).
It would also come down to resource use. Most of the time, there is just no need to have the sensors scanning for all parameters at all crewmembers all the time as it likely occupies a certain amount of ship's resources, and running those all the time would be inefficient (so its used when needed).
Passive scans seem to be on all of the time though for security purposes and as tech improves, more functionality and parameters are added to the passive mode over time.
That is why in cases where the transporters DO work the point is rather moot since the injured would be usually beamed back to sickbay.
But otherwise, in cases where transporters don't work, then the EMH could remotely explain certain procedures to the away team and how to stabilize them in case of a medical emergency.
The Voyager writers had VERY limited understanding of technology. Remember that a lot of what we take for granted now were in their infancy in the 90's. But even for the time, and allowing for dramatics, it was pretty awful.
But still, the EMH leaving sickbay was like a symbolic thing for his growth as a person.
But still, the EMH leaving sickbay was like a symbolic thing for his growth as a person.
I agree... but even back in the 90-ies it was possible to already imagine how technology could be applied effectively even remotely.
I think the main issues with 90-ies Trek was that it ADHERED mostly to the tech and setting in the first few seasons, but then radically relaxes these things in the later seasons.
Its seen in TNG, DS9 and VOY - all with similar degrees of variation.
Still, my point is that it wouldn't necessarily detract from the EMH's growth if they had him doing more remote diagnostics and assisting other crewmembers by guiding them to do some medical procedures if the injured couldn't be brought to him directly before he got the mobile emitter.
In fact, VOY did showcase this remote assistance on a few occasions. In the episode 'The Cloud', he was remotely talking to the crew assisting them on what they did to it to better ascertain how to help it recover.
Yeah, I think a lot of the portrayal of the Doctor's abilities have to be remembered within the context of the technology of the time. Voyager ended shortly before wireless started being particularly viable. Look at the times that they had "mail delivery" through PADDs personally delivered to the crew, rather than email-equivalents direct to their monitors in their quarters, or the whole sequence in Good Shepard of Janeway's orders going from the bridge to Astrometrics to Deck 15 via hand delivery.
Technology shifted in the last two decades, and so a lot of the options that would be available to the Doctor and Data before him if written today weren't even something that was seriously considered, even in a sci-fi vision of the future. Data had to be directly plugged into the Enterprise and rendered stationary if he connected to the ship's systems. The Doctor had to use external devices to do medical checks.
Granted, Trek tech has its own inconsistencies anyway - the belt buckle things on the TMP uniforms were supposed to be "perscan devices," meant to provide a constant real time measure of a crew member's vitals to Sickbay, which you would think would have removed the need for anything but specialized tricorder uses and non-crew scans, but that bit of tech didn't make it beyond TMP, so...
So the Federation designs ships that aren't "sentient" but regularly created holographic entities that are. While 60s Trek would go in knee-deep with metaphor and philosophy, 90s-Trek onward, as it went along, stopped doing that as much - VOY was good at times but it was definitely playing cookie cutter with previously successful motifs, as if trying to be TNG-Lite because DS9 was too gritty or too serialized or what not. I can imagine it right now: "Oi, remember how Data was deemed being and not a tool? Let's do that with a hologram as it'll be new and cool! They did that with Moriarty, but that was by accident. Ours will be deliberate! Oh wait, they had a story later where ship became sentient? Oh wait, that's in season seven and nobody remembers that little escapade, or those that do rated it 2 stars so we're good! Make him just like the original Dr McCoy with that catchphrase, too!" So now imagine the EMH trying to leave Starfleet with another rehash of "Measure of a Man", at least prior to the appropriation of the mobile emitter technology.
VOY did take Treknobabble, which was an art form in TNG, and cookie cuttered it as well. Even the cream of the best episodes had at least one line of dialogue that reeked this. Even "Timeless" with its 'Borg temporal transmitter", but it's a small compromise for an otherwise very satisfying ending. Considering that was the 8 zillionth new way to do time travel, I'm surprised that the Federation didn't provide EZ instructions into every computer on how to warp around the sun or get some kemacite or replicate the Borg temporal transmitter (for which a Borg could just travel back and time and save millions of drones from being murdered because their goal has always been to elevate and improve the quality of life (from their POV) of all lifeforms, that's 100% in their charter and such...)
There seems to be a distinction between a hologram and an android.
Both are AI and essentially synthetic in origin, but an adroid technically has a synth body... the Doctor is still a hologram though.
In fairness, if that's the case, then its an obvious distinction in how synthetic life is viewed.
Perhaps holograms are seen as less of a problem vs androids?
Also, I don't think the UFP frequently goes around making sentien holos - in most situations 'true intelligence holos' were made accidentally.
EMH's had a degree of sentience to them, but they were more akin to LLM's like ChatGPT is today (or at least, that's how they started out - a tool).
They understand who and what they are and what their purpose is and had no issues with it (much like Zimmerman diagnostic tool). Besides, the majority of EMH Mark 1's never went beyond their original programming like the Doctor had (and even in his case, it was dicey at best).
Remember when the Doctor was suffering from a cascade failure and they had to graft a diagnostic version of Zimmerman onto his matrix to stabilize him?
That and Torres did install some preventative buffers prior to that to ensure he wouldn't degrade (which were said that they didn't help - but its possible they contributed somewhat to help the EMH get through that ordeal).
I would say 'The Swarm' was a turning point for the Doctor... and its likely that what Torres did, and also subsequently grafting Zimmerman's matrix onto the EMH's is what helped turn things around for the EMH to get him to a place where he would achieve real sentience.
What grates me about ST:Picard is that it essentially showcased exactly what they feared would come to pass in 'Measure of a Man'.
That said, they didn't even NEED androids to do any kind of work next to pre-existing drones, replicators, transporters, tractor beams, and anti grav units.
I mean, come on, just make an assembly line of sorts integrating these technologies into one and you don't even need pairs of hands walking on feet to do anything (at least not as far as Trek tech is concerned).
To be fair, that could be considered a breach of Temporal Prime Directive.
But the solution is obvious - keep it behind a firewall and let the computer only allow it if a justifiable enough reason is provided to use this method of time travel.
