Star Trek: Who's The Best Starfleet Medical Officer?

Highlights

The best Starfleet medical officers must trust expertise and handle chaos with grace in the wild space of Star Trek.
From Dr. McCoy’s compassion to Dr. Bashir’s ethical dilemmas, each officer showcases unique qualities in their role.
Nurses like Christine Chapel prove they are more than just romantic interests, prioritizing advancement in the medical field.

A great Starfleet officer is a dime a dozen in Star Trek, but only the best of the best have what it takes to make it in the medical field. After all, they literally hold the lives of precious crewmembers in their hands. They have to know what they’re doing, or else everyone around them is screwed. They also have to know how to roll with the punches that come with practicing medicine in wild space

Dr. Ohk (Tiffany Shepis) tries to stick to the rules while working with the legendary Enterprise crew on Picard. The Trill chief medical officer (CMO) quickly learns that her best bet is trusting the expertise of those that have come before her. On the flip side, Discovery’s Dr. Tracy Pollard (Raven Dauda) takes each crisis as it arrives with grace and efficiency. Anybody who can keep up with Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and her chaotic brand of heroism deserves a medal. So, who else has the skills to be considered the best Starfleet medical officer?

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Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy

The Original Series

Dr. Leonard McCoy (DeForest Kelley) was the first Star Trek CMO to make a huge impact on fans. While he was easily the most memorable Starfleet medical officer in The Original Series, he was also the grumpiest. Dr. Sarah April (Nichelle Nichols) was a medical genius on The Animated Series who created medical tools that Dr. McCoy later used. Dr. Phil Boyce (John Hoyt) was sort of a right-hand man to Captain Pike (Jeffrey Hunter). Dr. Mark Piper (Paul Fix) helped Captain Kirk (William Shatner) and the Original Series crew in season 1, episode 1, “Where No Man Has Gone Before.”

But Dr. McCoy stood out in Star Trek as the best Starfleet medical officer. He joined Starfleet even though he was transporter-shy, slightly bigoted towards alien life forms (especially Vulcans), and yearning for home. So, what kept him around? Nothing but his compassion and strong desire to help people. Dr. McCoy, aka Bones, might have complained the whole time. But he was undeniably good at his job. Just don’t ask about that time he slapped a pregnant woman for not letting him touch her stomach while she was going into labor. There’s curmudgeonly, and then there’s barely escaping a galactic lawsuit of misconduct on the job.

Dr. Julian Bashir

Deep Space 9

When Dr. Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig) first arrived on the promenade in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, he was a beautiful contradiction. On one hand, he was a charming flirt with grand ideas of exploring the wilderness of Bajor. Major Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor) had to bring him down a peg or two. He saw her home as a frontier waiting to be discovered, while she reminded him that it was a newly-freed planet struggling to find its footing after decades of Cardassian oppression. On the other hand, Dr. Bashir was hiding his genetic engineering, which Star Trek: Deep Space Nine would later expose in season 5, episode 16, “Doctor Bashir, I Presume.”

At the end of the day, though, his growth as a Starfleet medical officer was best measured in his willingness to help the Jem’Hadar in season 4, episode 4, “Hippocratic Oath.” These cloned warriors had been the finely-honed weapons of the Dominion. Yet, Dr. Bashir tried to help them free themselves from the addiction to ketracel-white drug that kept them enslaved. The CMO upheld his oath to do no harm, when not doing so would have been easier.

Nurse Christine Chapel

The Original Series

It’s easy for Star Trek fans to reduce Nurse Christine Chapel to her romantic pursuits, but doing so diminishes her importance. Sure, The Original Series often showed her Chapel (Majel Barrett) pining for new love with Science Officer Spock (Leonard Nimoy) or old love with Roger Korby (Michael Strong). However, her best skills as a Starfleet medical officer still shined through. Like when she helped Lt. Nyota Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) after the villainous Star Trek spacecraft Nomad messed with her brain in season 2, episode 3, “The Changeling.”

Strange New Worlds put even more emphasis on Nurse Chapel (Jess Bush) as a medical professional. The series kicks off by showing her administering DNA-scrambling medicine to the crew for a discrete mission on the hostile planet Kiley 279. Its most reason season ends with her acceptance into the prestigious Fellowship of Archaeological Medicine. This prompts Nurse Chapel to end her brief love affair with Spock (Ethan Peck). She prioritizes her advancement within the medical field and makes the best out of improving herself as a Starfleet officer. In the end, Nurse Chapel proves she’s more than just the resident Star Trek love interest – she’s a great nurse first and foremost.

Dr. Joseph M’Benga

Strange New Worlds

Traumatized Starfleet officers aren’t new to Star Trek. In fact, one could argue that they’re the backbone of the organization. Dr. Joseph M’Benga (Babs Olusanmokun), for example, started his tenure in Strange New Worlds with PTSD from the Klingon-Federation war. He went on to become a prolific Starfleet medical officer, one of the best in his field. Dr. M’Benga worked as a CMO on the Enterprise under Captain Pike (Anson Mount). Unfortunately, however, the very trauma that made him so good at his job came back to bite him in season 2, episode 8, “Under the Cloak of War.”

That could explain his (Booker Bradshaw) demoted Starfleet position in The Original Series. Maybe the consequences of his actions caught up with him. Maybe he just wanted to escape the stress of running a Starfleet medbay. Either way, Dr. M’Benga stuck around to apply his decades-worth of knowledge of Vulcan physiology. Which meant he was around to slap Spock back to consciousness after he’d been shot. What’s with The Original Series and doctors slapping their patients?

Who Takes The Top Spot?

Star Trek has a vast fandom to match its plethora of TV shows, and not everyone agrees. Even now, not everyone agrees with who has been named or unnamed. Fear not, though, because determining the best Starfleet medical officer can still acknowledge fan-favorites. The transformation of Dr. Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden) through The Next Generation and into Picard allowed her to become more than just a damsel in distress. Fans appreciated her even more after the unsuccessful attempt to replace her in season 2 with Dr. Katherine Pulaski (Diana Muldaur).

Like Dr. M’Benga, Dr. Hugh Culber (Wilson Cruz) learned how to balance his job with his past trauma. Luckily, he had Dr. Pollard holding down the medbay whenever he was struggling. At least three non-Human medical officers have run the medbay: Voyager’s The Doctor (Robert Picardo), Lower Decks’ Dr. T’Ana (Gillian Vigman), and Enterprise’s Dr. Phlox (John Billingsley). Star Trek definitely needs to diversify its presence of alien species in Starfleet medical. When it comes to the performance of these professionals, however, the franchise is doing just fine.