Emergency Medical Hologram
The EMH is a holographic computer program designed to treat patients during emergency situations, or when the regular medical staff is unavailable or incapacitated. EMHs are now a standard feature onboard all Starfleet ships, but they are there only to supplement the living medical crew, not replace it. Programmed with all current Starfleet medical knowledge, the Doctor and all Mark Is are equipped with the knowledge and mannerisms of historic Federation doctors, as well as the physical appearance of their programmer, Dr. Lewis Zimmerman.
There has been only one update to the Mark I seen on screen, the Mark II played by Andy Dick in the episode "Message in a Bottle", which supposedly had a "better" bedside manner than the Mark I, as well as possibly some updated medical information. However, later episodes mention that further versions of the EMH exist.
Read more about this topic: Doctor (Star Trek: Voyager)
Famous quotes containing the words emergency and/or medical:
“In this country, you never pull the emergency brake, even when there is an emergency. It is imperative that the trains run on schedule.”
—Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)
“There may perhaps be a new generation of doctors horrified by lacerations, infections, women who have douched with kitchen cleanser. What an irony it would be if fanatics continued to kill and yet it was the apathy and silence of the medical profession that most wounded the ability to provide what is, after all, a medical procedure.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)