User:Nerd42/Why I Hate Phlox So Much





Seems like lots of hardcore Trekkies have that one character whom they just hate hate hate with a hot fiery hate that burns with the heat of a thousand suns beyond the very flames of hell itself. And for me, this character is the so-called "Doctor" Phlox (ENT) and the reason is because of his numerous, inexcusable medical ethics violations. I wouldn't trust Dr. Phlox to dispense a band aid.

I think it is, of course, important to distinguish between Dr. Phlox, the character, and John Billingsley, the actor who portrayed him. Billingsley is a perfectly fine actor and I do not want in any way by attacking his character to be attacking him as an actor or hurting his career. Given the crappy scripts he was handed, I'm sure he made the very best of a very bad situation. No, I blame the script writers and as my documentation of Phlox's ethical misconduct will show, my strong dislike of Phlox has nothing to do with Mr. Billingsley and everything to do with my ideas about medical ethics. I would cast Mr. Billingsley as a villain because he did a good job portraying Phlox and I regard Phlox as a villain.

The role of doctors in Star Trek
The role of the Chief Medical Officer can be the most significant role in terms of making key ethical decisions of consequence on every Star Trek series - arguably even more significant than the Captain. And admittedly, Phlox has some pretty big shoes to fill. McCoy, (TOS) Crusher, (TNG) Pulaski, (TNG) Bashir (DS9) and the Emergency Medical Hologram (VOY) are all great doctors and they get their ethics right most of the time. Not always, but the majority of the time. Phlox, in contrast, consistently gets it wrong.

Phlox's overall approach to medicine
First, let's say a thing or two about Phlox's general approach to wellness. Clearly, from the first episode onward, the distinctive feature of everything Phlox does with medicine is his use of leeches and other nasty animals that have no business being used on people, ostensibly for the sake of beneficial side-effects. I think this is a deeply flawed methodology. The psychological stress that this bizarre treatment puts the patient under probably does much more to retard the healing process than help it in the long run. If we wanted leeches, eels and nasty bugs crawling around on us, surely the Enterprise could stop at some primitive planet and solicit the services of the most superstitious witch-doctors with much less trouble than the trouble of bringing Dr. Phlox along.

We don't want multiculturalism in our medicine, otherwise we'd quit using anesthetics in dentistry. We just want to get our owies/boo-boos fixed in the quickest and most comfortable way possible and do not want icky bloodworms creeping through our veins. I think Phlox's insistence on using animals in medicine is pretty twisted and has more to do with his personal obsession with animals than anything to do with what's best for the patient. What's best for the patient, really, is getting things back to normal as quickly as possible, not making them weirder. Let's face alien cultures when we're well and at our most shielded and rationally prepared, not when we're sick and vulnerable.

(more to come ... got to save periodically. I'm going to go through a complete list of all of Phlox's ethics violations)