Doctor
Species: Emergency Medical Hologram Mark I
Full name: none
Rank: none
Date of birth: first activated on stardate 48308.2 (2371)
Place of birth: programmed on Jupiter station
Parents: programmed by Dr. Lewis Zimmerman
Marital status: single
Holographic program available on some Federation starships, including the USS Voyager, intended as a short-term supplement to medical personnel in emergency situations. The EMH manifested himself as a humanoid physician, and could treat virtually any injury or known disease, but could function only in areas equipped with holographic projectors (VOY: "Caretaker"). The Emergency Medical Hologram was developed at Starfleet's Jupiter Station and was designed by Dr. Lewis Zimmerman. Lieutenant Reginald Barclay was a member of Zimmerman's development team, in charge of testing the EMH's interpersonal skills (VOY: "Projections"). The EMH program caused holographic projectors not only to generate an image of a person, but also to create a magnetic containment field, within which electromagnetic energy was trapped, thereby giving the Doctor the ability to physically manipulate real objects such as patients and medical instruments (VOY: "Phage"). After the entire medical staff of the USS Voyager were killed in 2371 during the ship's rough passage to the Delta Quadrant, the ship's Emergency Medical Hologram became the only source of medical treatment for the crew (VOY: "Caretaker").
The Doctor was programmed with over five million possible treatments, with contingency options and adaptive programs (VOY: "Ex Post Facto") utilizing sophisticated multitronic pathway programming (VOY: "The Swarm"). He was fed with information from 2,000 medical references and the experience of 47 physicians (VOY: "Parallax"). The EMH program, which was first activated on stardate 48308, consisted of more than fifty million gigaquads of computer data and was equipped with the medical knowledge of more than three thousand cultures (VOY: "Lifesigns"). His knowledge of medical treatments included those based on psychospiritual beliefs such as those employed by some of Earth's Native Americans (VOY: "Cathexis"). The EMH's programming was extremely sophisticated, permitting him to learn from new data and experiences, and even to be creative. Shortly after stardate 48532, when crew member Neelix's lungs were removed, the doctor saved Neelix's life by devising a means of creating a pair of holographic lungs, using the holographic emitters in sickbay (VOY: "Phage"). The EMH was definitely capable of independent thought. In 2372, he refused a direct order to separate Tuvix into Tuvok and Neelix. He did so because obeying the order would have required him to take a life, violating his doctor's oath to do no harm (VOY: "Tuvix").
The EMH undertook his first away mission on stardate 48693. He was dispatched to the ship's holodeck to investigate the disappearance of three Voyager crew members. He was successful in interacting with a photonic being that had taken up residence on the holodeck and in gaining the return of the missing crew. His actions during this first contact mission gained him a special commendation from Voyager Captain Janeway (VOY: "Heroes and Demons"). Still, he remained restricted to sickbay. This changed when Voyager visited Earth's past of 1996, and Henry Starling fitted the EMH with an autonomous holographic emitter. When Voyager's crew returned to their own time period, the Doctor retained the holoemitter, which gave him the ability to operate outside of sickbay, even in areas without holographic emitters (VOY: "Future's End").
So sophisticated was the holographic doctor's program that he was a sentient life-form. He therefore found it frustrating when some members of the Voyager crew treated him as an inanimate computer program. Captain Janeway ordered that the EMH be given control over his own deactivation sequence, in order to avoid the indignity of his being deactivated by others (VOY: "Eye of the Needle"). The Doctor's role as sole medical professional on the ship caused him to undergo significant growth as a sentient life-form. One of his early steps in this growth process was his search for a name for himself. Among the names he considered were Benjamin Spock and Jonas Salk (VOY: "Ex Post Facto"). He also thought about Albert Schweitzer. Vidiian physician Danara Pel suggested Shmullus, after her beloved uncle. In one possible future visited by Kes, the holographic doctor aboard the Voyager decided on the name Dr. van Gogh, after being known as Dr. Mozart for a time (VOY: "Before and After").
The Doctor was not programmed to bleed or to feel pain. When activated, the Emergency Medical Hologram established communication links with all key areas of the Starship Voyager. He sometimes used this ability to surreptitiously listen to conversations throughout the ship, until Captain Janeway ordered him to refrain from eavesdropping. (VOY: "Parturition"). The Doctor was sensitive to criticisms that, as a synthetic life-form, he would have difficulties empathizing with the suffering of an organic patient. In order to address this potential weakness, he once programmed himself with a holographic simulation of the 29-hour Levodian flu so that he could experience the disease process. His programming did not include the ability to cry (VOY: "Threshold").
The holographic doctor was designed as a short-term supplement for medical personnel, not to be used for more than 1,500 hours. By stardate 50252.3, this limit had been greatly exceeded, and the EMH suffered level-4 memory fragmentation, resulting in rapid deterioration of program function. Rather than re-initialize the EMH, which would caused him to forget everything he had learned, including growth of personality, the Voyager crew instead decided to merge the EMH's program matrix with that of the Jupiter Station EMH diagnostic program. The matrix overlay process worked to maintain the integrity of the EMH, but his memory was not fully restored (VOY: "The Swarm"). In 2373, the Emergency Medical Hologram created a personality-improvement holographic program that incorporated several historic characters' personalities into his subroutines. Unfortunately, the unsavory side of these characters turned the EMH to evil until B'Elanna Torres purged the personalities from his memory (VOY: "Darkling"). The Doctor was facing a dilemma, when he was supposed to work with the re-creation of a Cardassian physician, who was known to perform condemnable experiments on Bajoran patients (VOY: "Nothing Human"). An old wound showed up when the Doctor regained the memory of an incident that had caused a system failure of his matrix several months before. He had decided to treat Harry Kim first, whereupon the other wounded person, Ahni Jetal, had died. Being filled with remorse, he had not been able to work any longer, and his memory of the incident had been purged. Now the same problem occurred again, and it was decided that the Doctor needed to be cured instead of being reprogrammed (VOY: "Latent Image").
On stardate 48892, a surge of kinoplastic radiation caused a malfunction in Voyager's holodeck circuits, trapping the Doctor in a delusional reality in which he briefly believed he was a real person named Lewis Zimmerman. In this fantasy, the Doctor imagined he was married to a human woman named Kes Zimmerman (VOY: "Projections"). In 2372, he fell in love with the Vidiian Danara Pel (VOY: "Lifesigns"). Being instrumental in helping Seven of Nine regaining her human appearance (VOY: "The Gift"), the Doctor subsequently developed a romantic attraction to her, but he never dared to confess it. He even missed a clear chance when he helped Seven with lessons on romantic relationships (VOY: "Someone to Watch Over Me"). The Doctor was not content with just being the ship's physician. In his own fantasy, he became Voyager's "Emergency Command Hologram" (VOY: "Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy"). Subsequently, Janeway actually enabled such a routine for the case that the rest of the crew should be gone or disabled, which happened in 2377 (VOY: "Workforce"). The Doctor was also working to have photonic projections acknowledged as lifeforms, especially since he had to learn from his creator that many of his fellow holograms were condemned to do slave labor (VOY: "Life Line"). He wrote a holonovel, in which he used characters of the Starship Voyager, but in an inappropriate depiction. When the Doctor asked his submission of the story to a publisher to be cancelled, the publisher replied that they would not need to do that because the Doctor was not a lifeform and could therefore not be an author. But at least the Doctor's authorship was acknowledged in an improvised court session between the Alpha Quadrant and the Delta Quadrant (VOY: "Author, Author").
Full name: none
Rank: none
Date of birth: first activated on stardate 48308.2 (2371)
Place of birth: programmed on Jupiter station
Parents: programmed by Dr. Lewis Zimmerman
Marital status: single
Holographic program available on some Federation starships, including the USS Voyager, intended as a short-term supplement to medical personnel in emergency situations. The EMH manifested himself as a humanoid physician, and could treat virtually any injury or known disease, but could function only in areas equipped with holographic projectors (VOY: "Caretaker"). The Emergency Medical Hologram was developed at Starfleet's Jupiter Station and was designed by Dr. Lewis Zimmerman. Lieutenant Reginald Barclay was a member of Zimmerman's development team, in charge of testing the EMH's interpersonal skills (VOY: "Projections"). The EMH program caused holographic projectors not only to generate an image of a person, but also to create a magnetic containment field, within which electromagnetic energy was trapped, thereby giving the Doctor the ability to physically manipulate real objects such as patients and medical instruments (VOY: "Phage"). After the entire medical staff of the USS Voyager were killed in 2371 during the ship's rough passage to the Delta Quadrant, the ship's Emergency Medical Hologram became the only source of medical treatment for the crew (VOY: "Caretaker").
The Doctor was programmed with over five million possible treatments, with contingency options and adaptive programs (VOY: "Ex Post Facto") utilizing sophisticated multitronic pathway programming (VOY: "The Swarm"). He was fed with information from 2,000 medical references and the experience of 47 physicians (VOY: "Parallax"). The EMH program, which was first activated on stardate 48308, consisted of more than fifty million gigaquads of computer data and was equipped with the medical knowledge of more than three thousand cultures (VOY: "Lifesigns"). His knowledge of medical treatments included those based on psychospiritual beliefs such as those employed by some of Earth's Native Americans (VOY: "Cathexis"). The EMH's programming was extremely sophisticated, permitting him to learn from new data and experiences, and even to be creative. Shortly after stardate 48532, when crew member Neelix's lungs were removed, the doctor saved Neelix's life by devising a means of creating a pair of holographic lungs, using the holographic emitters in sickbay (VOY: "Phage"). The EMH was definitely capable of independent thought. In 2372, he refused a direct order to separate Tuvix into Tuvok and Neelix. He did so because obeying the order would have required him to take a life, violating his doctor's oath to do no harm (VOY: "Tuvix").
The EMH undertook his first away mission on stardate 48693. He was dispatched to the ship's holodeck to investigate the disappearance of three Voyager crew members. He was successful in interacting with a photonic being that had taken up residence on the holodeck and in gaining the return of the missing crew. His actions during this first contact mission gained him a special commendation from Voyager Captain Janeway (VOY: "Heroes and Demons"). Still, he remained restricted to sickbay. This changed when Voyager visited Earth's past of 1996, and Henry Starling fitted the EMH with an autonomous holographic emitter. When Voyager's crew returned to their own time period, the Doctor retained the holoemitter, which gave him the ability to operate outside of sickbay, even in areas without holographic emitters (VOY: "Future's End").
So sophisticated was the holographic doctor's program that he was a sentient life-form. He therefore found it frustrating when some members of the Voyager crew treated him as an inanimate computer program. Captain Janeway ordered that the EMH be given control over his own deactivation sequence, in order to avoid the indignity of his being deactivated by others (VOY: "Eye of the Needle"). The Doctor's role as sole medical professional on the ship caused him to undergo significant growth as a sentient life-form. One of his early steps in this growth process was his search for a name for himself. Among the names he considered were Benjamin Spock and Jonas Salk (VOY: "Ex Post Facto"). He also thought about Albert Schweitzer. Vidiian physician Danara Pel suggested Shmullus, after her beloved uncle. In one possible future visited by Kes, the holographic doctor aboard the Voyager decided on the name Dr. van Gogh, after being known as Dr. Mozart for a time (VOY: "Before and After").
The Doctor was not programmed to bleed or to feel pain. When activated, the Emergency Medical Hologram established communication links with all key areas of the Starship Voyager. He sometimes used this ability to surreptitiously listen to conversations throughout the ship, until Captain Janeway ordered him to refrain from eavesdropping. (VOY: "Parturition"). The Doctor was sensitive to criticisms that, as a synthetic life-form, he would have difficulties empathizing with the suffering of an organic patient. In order to address this potential weakness, he once programmed himself with a holographic simulation of the 29-hour Levodian flu so that he could experience the disease process. His programming did not include the ability to cry (VOY: "Threshold").
The holographic doctor was designed as a short-term supplement for medical personnel, not to be used for more than 1,500 hours. By stardate 50252.3, this limit had been greatly exceeded, and the EMH suffered level-4 memory fragmentation, resulting in rapid deterioration of program function. Rather than re-initialize the EMH, which would caused him to forget everything he had learned, including growth of personality, the Voyager crew instead decided to merge the EMH's program matrix with that of the Jupiter Station EMH diagnostic program. The matrix overlay process worked to maintain the integrity of the EMH, but his memory was not fully restored (VOY: "The Swarm"). In 2373, the Emergency Medical Hologram created a personality-improvement holographic program that incorporated several historic characters' personalities into his subroutines. Unfortunately, the unsavory side of these characters turned the EMH to evil until B'Elanna Torres purged the personalities from his memory (VOY: "Darkling"). The Doctor was facing a dilemma, when he was supposed to work with the re-creation of a Cardassian physician, who was known to perform condemnable experiments on Bajoran patients (VOY: "Nothing Human"). An old wound showed up when the Doctor regained the memory of an incident that had caused a system failure of his matrix several months before. He had decided to treat Harry Kim first, whereupon the other wounded person, Ahni Jetal, had died. Being filled with remorse, he had not been able to work any longer, and his memory of the incident had been purged. Now the same problem occurred again, and it was decided that the Doctor needed to be cured instead of being reprogrammed (VOY: "Latent Image").
On stardate 48892, a surge of kinoplastic radiation caused a malfunction in Voyager's holodeck circuits, trapping the Doctor in a delusional reality in which he briefly believed he was a real person named Lewis Zimmerman. In this fantasy, the Doctor imagined he was married to a human woman named Kes Zimmerman (VOY: "Projections"). In 2372, he fell in love with the Vidiian Danara Pel (VOY: "Lifesigns"). Being instrumental in helping Seven of Nine regaining her human appearance (VOY: "The Gift"), the Doctor subsequently developed a romantic attraction to her, but he never dared to confess it. He even missed a clear chance when he helped Seven with lessons on romantic relationships (VOY: "Someone to Watch Over Me"). The Doctor was not content with just being the ship's physician. In his own fantasy, he became Voyager's "Emergency Command Hologram" (VOY: "Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy"). Subsequently, Janeway actually enabled such a routine for the case that the rest of the crew should be gone or disabled, which happened in 2377 (VOY: "Workforce"). The Doctor was also working to have photonic projections acknowledged as lifeforms, especially since he had to learn from his creator that many of his fellow holograms were condemned to do slave labor (VOY: "Life Line"). He wrote a holonovel, in which he used characters of the Starship Voyager, but in an inappropriate depiction. When the Doctor asked his submission of the story to a publisher to be cancelled, the publisher replied that they would not need to do that because the Doctor was not a lifeform and could therefore not be an author. But at least the Doctor's authorship was acknowledged in an improvised court session between the Alpha Quadrant and the Delta Quadrant (VOY: "Author, Author").
Robert Picardo
Robert Picardo was born on October 27, 1953 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, where he spent his whole childhood. He graduated from the William Penn Charter School and attended Yale University. At Yale, he landed a role in Leonard Bernstein's "Mass" and at age 19, he played a leading role in the European premiere of "Mass". Later, he graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Drama from Yale University. He appeared in the David Mamet play "Sexual Perversity in Chicago" and, with Diane Keaton, in "The Primary English Class". In 1977, he made his Broadway debut in the comedy hit, "Gemini", with Danny Aiello, and also appeared in Bernard Slade's "Tribute", "Beyond Therapy" as well as "Geniuses" and "The Normal Heart", for which he won a Drama-Logue Award.
Then, he became involved in television, where he soon was nominated for an Emmy Award for his role as Coach Cutlip on the series, The Wonder Years (1988). Robert appeared in several other series: China Beach (1988), Frasier (1993), Ally McBeal (1997), Home Improvement (1991), Krajné medze (1995) and Sabrina, mladá čarodejnica (1996). In 1995, he got the role of the holographic doctor on Star Trek: Voyager (1995), where he also directed two episodes. He also got roles in The Howling (1981), Star 80 (1983), Get Crazy (1983), Oh, God! You Devil (1984), Vnútorný vesmír (1987), Munchies (1987), Samantha (1991), White Mile (1994), Star Trek VIII: Prvý kontakt (1996), Small Soldiers (1998), Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003), Quantum Quest: A Cassini Space Odyssey (2010), and so on.
Then, he became involved in television, where he soon was nominated for an Emmy Award for his role as Coach Cutlip on the series, The Wonder Years (1988). Robert appeared in several other series: China Beach (1988), Frasier (1993), Ally McBeal (1997), Home Improvement (1991), Krajné medze (1995) and Sabrina, mladá čarodejnica (1996). In 1995, he got the role of the holographic doctor on Star Trek: Voyager (1995), where he also directed two episodes. He also got roles in The Howling (1981), Star 80 (1983), Get Crazy (1983), Oh, God! You Devil (1984), Vnútorný vesmír (1987), Munchies (1987), Samantha (1991), White Mile (1994), Star Trek VIII: Prvý kontakt (1996), Small Soldiers (1998), Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003), Quantum Quest: A Cassini Space Odyssey (2010), and so on.