Emergency medical hologram
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An emergency medical hologram (or EMH) is a computerized medical system to attend patients on a Federation starship if the ship's medical staff is incapacitated. The system uses holodeck technology to project a humanoid image with force-field support to allow the image to manipulate medical equipment. An AI program connected to a medical database operates the image like a puppet.
A typical Starfleet EMH has technical proficiency in many fields of medicine, but they tend to have a poor bedside manner, not having been designed to deal with patients on a regular basis for routine care. Attempts to rectify this in later revisions of the EMH program proved to be fruitless.
Voyager's Doctor
When the chief medical officer of the USS Voyager was killed, the ship's EMH was forced to serve as CMO for the ship. Consequently, this medical hologram spent far more time actively running than any other EMH in Starfleet. Since the EMH program is an artificial intelligence with learning ability, the Voyager EMH developed a far more complex personality than most EMH programs. Voyager's EMH is probably the only truly likable personality on Voyager.
See Also
- The Doctor (Doctor Who) for information about the BBC science fiction character, who fortunately has no relationship to Voyager.