Dr. Leonard H. McCoy
Serial Number:
Born: Georgia, U.S.A.
Dr. McCoy's nickname is "Bones" ( Captain Kirk game him the nickname "Bone") during the Ninth Century the nickname was used for surgeons of the Civil War. The nickname was "Saw Bones" but as time turned to the Twentieth Century it was shortened to "Bones".
As of 2267, Dr. McCoy had earned the Legion of Honor, and had been decorated by Starfleet Surgeons.
Early in his medical career McCoy's father was struck with a terrible, fatal inllness. Faced with the prospect of suffering a terrible, lingering death, McCoy mercifully "pulled the plug" on his father, allowing him to die. To McCoy's considerable anguish, a cure for his father's desease was discovered shortly thereafter, and McCoy carried the guilt for his father's possibly needless death for many years. Prior to his assignment to the Enterprise, McCoy had been romantically involved the unmarried Nancy Crater.
As of 2266:
Dr. McCoy is Senior Ship's Surgeon of the U.S.S. Enterprise and head of the Medical Department. As such, he is medically responsible for the physical and emotional health of the crew of the Enterprise. He also has broad medical science responsibilities in areas of space exploration. He was associated with the Enterprise and its successor for some 27 years.
As Senior Ship's Surgeon, McCoy is one man who can approach Captain Kirk on the most intimate personal levels relating to the captain's physical, mental,and emotional well being. Indeed, he has the absolute duty to constantly keep abreast of the Captain's condition and speak out openly to Kirk on this matter. he is probably the only person aboard who could talk back to Kirk, say something sharp or argumentative, and get away with it. Part of this stems from the relationship between himself and his Captain and part from his own crusty personality.
The doctor is something of a future-day H. L. Menchen, a very outspoken character, with more than a little cynical bite in his attitudes and observations on life. he has an acid wit which, under close scrutiny, carries more than a grain of truth about medicine, man and society. Like most cynics, McCoy is a bleeding heart humanist, but he attempts to hide his sensitive humanitarian feelings with the brusqueness of his personality.
Of all aboard the Enterprise, McCoy is the least military. He is filled with idiosyncrasies, which have become his trademark, and is regarded by the other crew members as something of an eccentric. McCoy has been put down by Kirk on occasion for speaking out in his straightforward manner. Usually the Doctor can get away with it because of his privileged medical status. Star Fleet regulations give him broad areas of responsibility, including the right to demand medical examinations of his Captain's physical and emotional fitness. In many medical areas he can overrule Kirk's orders. In extreme emergencies he can certify the Captain as unfit for duty.
McCoy has an inbred distrust of machines, as evidenced by his loathing for the transporter system used for "beaming" personnel from the ship to planet surfaces. he often protests that he does not care to have his molecules scrambled and beamed around as if he were a mere radio message.
"Bones"
is highly practical in the old general practitioner sense. He hates pills
except when they are vitally needed, does not feel machines are the best
way to treat people, and sincerely believes a little suffering is good for
the soul and maturity of the individual. He has a great fear that computerized
medicine and advanced tranquilizers and pain-killers may rob man of his
individuality and his divine right to wrestle a bit with life. McCoy is
a superb physician and surgeon ----and often seems to be treating the wrong
ailment, but usually is proved right in the end.
Leonard McCoy is 45 years old. He never wanted to be anything but a doctor. A student of the "old school," he received his medical training as a general practitioner.
He was married once, but the details are a mystery to all in the Space Service. What is known is that the marriage ended unhappily in a divorce. However, he has a twenty-one-year-old daughter named Joanna, from that marriage. McCoy has properly provided for her well-being, hears from her as often as interstellar communications permits, but his duty aboard the Enterprise keeps them apart. Ordinarily, a general practitioner would be of little practical value aboard a starship. but McCoy's unhappy marriage and subsequent divorce made him long for an escape from familiar and painful surroundings. He therefore plunged into intensive courses in Space Medicine and then volunteered for Star Fleet. Dr. McCoy, like many a man before him, has taken up wandering in order to get away from painful memories.
He is quite attractive to the ladies, he has retained, in spite of past unhappiness, an active and healthy interest in the opposite sex and in usually something of the gallant Southern gentleman in social life. (On those occasions, his Georgia accent is most noticeable.) While outwardly he seems to have buried his life in his work, he is nevertheless a human being capable of needs and wants and is in reality, although somewhat gingerly, searching for female companionship. He is a little afraid of it because of the time it didn't work out.
Dr. McCoy's great interest in people and his compassion for them account for his added role of counselor-at-large to the crew members who consult with him on a variety of problems.
In 2267, McCoy suffered a seroius ouverdose of cordrazine in a shipboard accident. In the paranoid delusions that followed, McCoy fled the ship, then jumped through a time portal being studied by Enterprise personnel. In the past, McCoy effected seroius demage to the flow of time until Kirk and Spock followed him to restore the shape of history.
In 2268, McCoy was diagnosed with terminal xenopolycythemia and chose to resign from Storfleet so that he could marry a woman named Natira, high priestess of the Yonadan people. McCoy rejoined Starfleet after a cure was found in the Yonadan memory banks.
McCoy retired from the Starfleet ater the return of the Enterprise from the five-year mission, but he returned to Starfleet at Kirk's request when the ship intercepted the V'Ger entity near Earth.
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