Star Trek and the Future State of Health Care

Space ships are like submarines in space. A typical nuclear submarine has a crew of over 80. Okay, in Star Trek's optimistic vision of the future, space ships have their luxuries and aren't the cramp, pressure capsules that submarines are. Since, these starfarers are not just explorers but military, one forgets the nature of medicine in the field. Submarines don't typically have room on board for medical centers and doctors and resort to using super-medics (this is a bit of an assumption as my limited research on the matter turned up no actually compelling statistics). But as stated Star Trek presents an optimistic vision of the future, and while getting in the occasional skirmish, there is typically always a doctor stationed.

Now one of the defining statistics for a high quality of life is the ratio of doctors to patients. According to the WHO, Cuba has a doctor for every 170 residents. Data as recent as 1999, suggested Cuba has a doctor to patient ratio of 58.2 to 10 000. Of course, Cuba's ratio is exceptionally high, but is a fair point of comparison because an optimistic future should have an exceptionally high ratio of something positive.


So I propose to look at the ratio of Doctors/Crew Members:

The USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) (a constitution-class ship) of The Original Series had a crew of 430. This Enterprise had a one Dr. Leonard McCoy (as well as at least two nurses, however rarely seen/mentioned).

The USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D) (a galaxy-class ship) of The Next Generation had a crew of 1014, not including dolphins. This Enterprise had Dr. Crusher as its Chief Medical Officer which implies subordinates although the size of her sickbay is unclear.

The USS Voyager (NC-74656) (an intrepid-class ship) of Voyager has a crew of 150-200. To be fair, any doctors seemed to die when the ship became lost in space and they had to resort to a single emergency hologram doctor.


I'm not exactly sure what conclusions can be drawn from this. Will a doctor-to-patient ratio be important in the future or will its influence on the quality of life be superseded by the advance of technology. Can technology ever truly replace doctors? Or does the fact that it could make a doctor's job easier increase the number of patients that doctor could effectively serve?

These are the questions I think good/interesting sci-fi asks and I'd be more interested in people exploring those answers than how Kirk is going to avoid the giant styrofoam rock thrown by that giant lizard man. Sure, that's an important moral question, but let's not forget the more sociological questions too.

(Space Ship Data Source: Memory Alpha)