Recruitment: Star Trek: Blood and Fire

[Tackyhillbilly]

A Nurse wouldn't be an ensign. Actually, you can't have a Medical Ensign on a ship, except under weird circumstances. Medical Officers are all doctors. The graduate Starfleet Medical at Lieutenant Junior Grade because they go to school after the Academy.

A Nurse would be an enlisted position, or maybe a NCO, as far as I understand it.

[Szandor]

Hmm, alright. Got to admit, the ranks and stuff are a little lost on me when it gets to the technicalities. I'm all for any sort of medical position that's available since my University course is a medical one, so I would excel at that more than any others available, but the Security one would be interesting as well. Just tell me what ranks are available and I'll do my best to research etc etc

[BlackStone]

While it is unusual, technically not true.  Fully educated nurses are officers, yet they are typically one step below rank of doctors, as are PA's.  I had a PA at LAFB who was a 2LT.  It has to deal with the level of education.  Most nursing and PA degrees are BS or Master Level education, where Doctors are PhD level (and Lawyers too btw).  It was why Lawyers and Doctors were into service at O3 instead of O1 or O2 because of the years of education they put in and the expertise.  They also were not Line Officers and as such could not command units instead of other non-line officers.  The one thing which irritated me to no end in Next Generation was the episode where it showed Beverly Crusher taking night shift duty as ranking officer.  As a non-line officer, she would not be able too.  Now later in the future when she was Captain of the Pasture, yes as she was commanding a medical ship, a non-combatant ship of which a non-line officer could command.

Nurses and PA depending on the degree, were O1 or O2.  Extremely rare to see nurses get into the field officer ranks, and unless they were the head nurse for a hospital, most were O3 range, so there was not much upward mobility in the Nursing Corps.  Medical specialists, such as radiologist or surgical techs or dental assistants were enlisted ranks. 

While it might be little unusual, I can work with an ensign nurse as part of the crew.

[Szandor]

Okay. So the original is a go, then?
I can make a character sheet/profile and all that, but I'm new here so I'll need some direction on where to do that, pleases and thank yous.