| “ | Please state the nature of the medical emergency. | „ |
| ~ The Doctor's activation greeting. |
The Emergency Medical Hologram, also known as the Doctor, was a Mark I Emergency Medical Holographic program featured on Star Trek: Voyager.
He was portrayed by Robert Picardo, who also played the Mark I EMH that had been installed on the Enterprise for several years.
The Doctor was created by Doctor Lewis Zimmerman, an expert in holographic programming. He was installed on USS Voyager during her construction. The Doctor was activated for the first time after the Voyager was pulled into the Delta Quadrant.
At first the Doctor was little more than a short term computer program meant to take over if the regular medical personnel were incapacitated or unavailable. The Doctor was forced to become the chief medical officer on the ship after all the regular medical personnel were killed when the ship was pulled in to the Delta Quadrant.
Because his inventor Louis Zimmerman had used his own personality as a template to program the Doctor, all of the personality flaws that Zimmerman had wound up getting programmed into the Doctor's personality matrix. The Doctor was rude and arrogant at first, resulting in a number of complaints from the crew. Captain Kathryn Janeway considered having the Doctor reprogrammed, but Kes made her realize that the reason the Doctor was so rude was because none of his needs were being met. As a first step she arranged for the Doctor to be able to deactivate himself when he wanted, and prevent others from deactivating him if it wasn't convenient. This marked a first step in the evolution of the Doctor into a person.
The Doctor evolved considerably during Voyager's return trip to the Alpha Quadrant, becoming a sentient being in his own right. His Voyager crewmates stopped seeing him as a tool and started seeing him as a friend and full member of the crew. They encouraged his growth and development into a full fledged individual.
Upon his return to the Alpha Quadrant, the Doctor continued to fight for equality for artificial life forms. Starfleet had him engage in several research projects, and eventually commissioned the Doctor as a Lieutenant Commander in 2395. A backup copy of the Doctor survived into the third millennium.