Doctors in Star Trek: Drs. Boyce and Piper, the early years.

Doctors are frequently depicted as important protagonists in science fiction, including in the science fiction franchise Star Trek. This paper will profile Drs. Philip Boyce and Mark Piper from the first two Star Trek pilot episodes. These doctors are interdisciplinarians with a variety of skills that permit them to cope with exotic maladies and biological afflictions of all kinds. However, they are also humanists who befriend their captains and act as psychological counselors whenever needed. Despite their brief appearances in only one episode each, this trope is later carried over to all of their other medical successors in the Star Trek timeline, as will be shown in the rest of the papers in this collection.