Doctor Katherine Pulaski
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Name: Katherine Pulaski
Rank: Commander
Position: Chief Medical Officer USS Enterprise(NCC-1701-E)

Starfleet History
pre 2353: Assigned to Starfleet Medical
pre: 2365: reassigned to USS Repulse as Chief Medical Officer
2365: Assigned to USS Enterprise(NCC-1701-D)
2372: Reassigned to USS Enterprise(NCC-1701-E)

Personal History
Pulaski was assigned to Starfleet Medical in San Francisco in 2353 when she first met Kyle Riker. Pulaski oversaw Riker's rehabilitation after he was severely injured by a Tholian attack on Starbase 311. Pulaski and Riker became romantically involved in an intense relationship that lasted just over a year. Early in her career, Pulaski authored a groundbreaking research paper called "Linear Models of Viral Propagation". It was still the standard on the subject many years later. She also performed two successful operations involving ocular implants. She offered the procedure to Lieutenant Geordi La Forge in 2365, although he turned down the opportunity. Prior to her posting to the Enterprise, Pulaski served as chief medical officer on the USS Repulse under the command of Captain Taggert. Like her predecessor eighty years before, Dr. Leonard McCoy, Dr. Pulaski had a transporter phobia. She rarely used the transporter while posted to that vessel, preferring to use shuttlecraft whenever possible. Taggert was fond of Pulaski, and said he would have given her a personal shuttlecraft if she had agreed to remain aboard the Repulse.

By 2365, when she transferred to the Enterprise, Pulaski carried the rank of commander. Unlike Dr. Crusher, however, she was not considered a bridge officer. Pulaski joined Lieutenant commander Data and Lieutenant La Forge on a holodeck simulation of a Sherlock Holmes mystery. La Forge had unwittingly given the simulated Professor James Moriarty, Holmes's nemesis, sentience by giving the computer the directive to create an adversary which could defeat Data, not Holmes. Moriarty took control of the program and abducted Pulaski. She was held captive but unharmed until Captain Picard was able to convince Moriarty to release control of the holodeck. The Enterprise was sent to investigate the disappearance of the USS Lantree and discovered that the entire crew had died as a result of premature aging. The Enterprise backtracked the Lantree's course and ended up at the Darwin Genetic Research Station on Gagarin IV. The scientists on the station, led by Dr. Sara Kingsley, were attempting to genetically engineer several children and accidentally caused their antibodies to become overzealous. The antibodies were designed to seek and destroy harmful organisms before they entered the bodies of the children. The Lantree first officer had been treated for the Thelusian flu prior to visiting Darwin Station, which triggered the immune systems of the children. The antibodies mutated and became airborne, attacking the Lantree crew as well as the scientists on the station. Dr. Kingsley was adamant that the children could not be carriers of the disease, given their isolation since the infection, plus the fact they have shown no signs. She pleaded with Dr. Pulaski to examine one of the children to rule out the possibility. Pulaski eventually convinced Captain Picard to let her beam one of the youths, encased in styrolite, aboard for examination. She was not content with scans of the child in stasis, and later had Commander Data take her and the teenager onto a shuttlecraft for revival in order to avoid risk to the Enterprise. Unfortunately, the children were indeed the source of the disease, and Pulaski was infected once the youth was removed from the styrolite. She and Data returned to the surface of Gagarin IV, where she worked to find a cure. Fortunately, a cure was devised by Picard and Data, with the help of Commander Riker, La Forge, and Chief O'Brien involving the transporter. Her DNA from before she was infected was obtained from a strand of hair, and it was used to instruct the biofilter on what elements were part of her normal genetic structure. The procedure was perilous; if the disease could not be removed via transporter, Pulaski's pattern would have been dispersed in space to prevent contamination of the Enterprise crew. The procedure was ultimately successful, and used to treat the station staff.

Dr. Pulaski pioneered a technique used to selectively wipe memory engrams from humanoid species, one that Dr. Beverly Crusher was familiar with. She had an expertise in heart surgery, and when Picard initially tried to refuse her medical order to proceed to Starbase 515 for a cardiac replacement surgery, she said then that her and her staff would be able to perform the surgery on Enterprise. He refused because of his pride, saying it would be inappropriate for Pulaski to do so. Picard eventually did accompany Wesley Crusher to the starbase (Wesley was going to undergo testing to see if he could continue his Starfleet Academy studies aboard Enterprise), but when complications developed that put his life in jeopardy, the surgeons, who were unqualified to perform risky techniques that might save Picard's life, called for Katherine Pulaski, who was so qualified. When Picard awoke to see Pulaski in the OR, he was annoyed that she was there. When she says she was saving his life, he says that this was a routine operation but Pulaski says Picard is not a commonplace man and despite the fact that the entire crew now knows of what's happened, Pulaski tells Picard that he's still invincible in their eyes. While visiting the Mariposan colony in 2365, Pulaski, along with Commander Riker, was briefly abducted. The Mariposans took epithelial cells from both, intending to use them to preserve their colony which was being affected by replicative fading. Once she and Riker learned of this, they returned to the planet and destroyed the two clones.

Another instance of Kate's empathy getting the better of her was when she rescued a native of Mintaka III during an emergency mission to a cultural observation outpost on the Bronze-age world. The Mintakan, Liko, awoke in the Enterprise sickbay and saw Captain Picard, believing him to be a god. After he was returned to his people, his story caused confusion and paranoia until Picard was able to prove that he too, was mortal. A Romulan scout was found crashed on Galorndon Core in 2366, and Pulaski was in charge of treating the sole survivor. Although she improvised as much as she could, there was not much medical knowledge available on Romulans and the survivor later died. Also in 2366, Kate was taken captive on the war-torn planet of Rutia IV after tending to citizens wounded during an Ansata attack. Their leader, Kyril Finn, wanted to have her cure the internal damage caused as a result of the terrorists' use of a folded-space transport device. Pulaski was shocked that Finn compared himself to George Washington, but also began to wonder whether or not the Federation's involvement with the official Rutian government was appropriate. She also had a great deal of sympathy for a small child who helped her tend to those injured by the transport device, and she was able to gain Finn's confidence as he sketched several pages of drawings modeled after her. Eventually, Pualski realized Finn was extremely irrational and misguided after he kidnapped Captain Picard and attempted to destroy the Enterprise. She was rescued when the Enterprise crew was able to locate the Ansata compound and Finn was killed. The child picked up a weapon and attempted to assassinate Picard and Alexana Devos, a Rutian security official, but Kate convinced him to stand down.

While visiting the Borg cube which invaded Federation space in 2367, Pulaski came up with the idea of damaging the Borg ship's power nodes in order to halt their progress towards Earth. She worked with Commander Data to develop a modification to the nanites which could be introduced to the Borg in order to destroy their mechanical systems, but the changes would take several weeks. Pulaski later helped Data link with Locutus of Borg, Picard's assimilated alter ego. She realized that the Borg interdependency was a great weakness, and suggested Data use a seemingly benign command to shut the Borg down. After the crisis, Pulaski pioneered the surgical techniques used for removing implants from Picard. When young Willie Potts was poisoned after eating a native plant on Ogus II, Crusher stabilized his condition and kept him healthy enough to live until the ship arrived at a medical facility designed to treat the poisoning. This task was complicated by the fact that the Enterprise had been hijacked by Data after his "father", Noonian Soong, sent out a signal to bring him to Soong's location. Power was needed from the quarantine field in order to restore the ship's systems, and Doctor Crusher needed to determine the precise amount of energy needed to keep Willie safe. Later that year Kate was questioned in connection with the explosion that crippled the Enterprise's warp core in 2367. Her testimony was twisted by Admiral Norah Satie in order to implicate the quarter-Romulan crewman Simon Tarses in the incident, later determined to be an accident.

The senior staff of the Enterprise traveled back to the late 19th century in order to stop Devidian lifeforms from feeding on the neural energy of Humans from that era, and prevent the apparent death of Commander Data in that time. Kate assumed the guise of a nurse and, along with Deanna Troi, experienced quite a bit of discomfort with the corsets of the period. Pulaski determined why the Devidians traveled back to that era, and was almost a victim of their energy-draining device. In the late 2360's Pulaski visited the newly commissioned Drema Station in the Selcundi Drema sector. During the transfer, she re-encountered Sarjenka. Also at some point during the 2360s, Pulaski had to opportunity to give a guest lecture to the students at Starfleet Medical Academy.

The Enterprise-D was destroyed in 2371 following a crash landing of the saucer section on the planet Veridian III. Although there were no fatalities to the crew, there were many wounded, which kept Pulaski quite busy. She transferred to the newly commissioned USS Enterprise-E the following year. Even though she was not fond of the Emergency Medical Hologram, she successfully used it as a decoy to keep the Borg distracted while the sickbay staff and patients made it to relative safety. In 2375, Kate was part of the diplomatic contingent welcoming the Evora as a protectorate into the Federation. She also aided Captain Picard in his struggle to keep the Ba'ku from being relocated by the Son'a, and was the first to realize that both species were of the same ancestry. During the Ba'ku exodus, Deanna noted that her breasts were starting to "firm up" due to the effects of the planet's metaphasic radiation. Kate then attended the wedding of Captain Riker and Counselor Troi on Earth and subsequently traveled to Betazed to take part in a traditional Betazoid wedding ceremony. After discovering Data's 'brother', B-4, Kate and Commander Data collaborated on an examination of the less-advanced android's systems. Kate then, after the Enterprise was diverted to Romulus, examined Praetor Shinzon's DNA, telling Jean-Luc that he's a clone of himself.

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