Lieutenant Commander David Deschanel
Name David Seeley Deschanel M.D.
Rank Lieutenant Commander
Character Information
| Gender | Male | |
| Species | Human | |
| Age | 45 |
Physical Appearance
| Height | 6' 2" | |
| Weight | 218 lbs | |
| Hair Color | Brown | |
| Eye Color | Brown | |
| Physical Description | Deschanel has a chiselled face, with a rounded jaw, often lined with faint stubble, even after a morning shave. His hair is fairly close-cropped, and he keeps himself is top physical condition, mainly due to the sports and running he enjoys taking part in. |
Family
| Children | Jeremy "Jerry" Deschanel | |
| Father | Hank Deschanel | |
| Mother | Emily Deschanel | |
| Brother(s) | Jared Deschanel |
Personality & Traits
| General Overview | Deschanel is considered to have a very strong personality, able to take hits in his stride and admit to his mistakes. He prefers to keep his personal and his professional lives separate, and will only really open up details of his personal life during work with colleagues that he has truly become close to. As a doctor, Deschanel's approach is a mixture of the scientific and the intuitive. Always wanting to find out all of the details before making a conclusion, he will however rely heavily on his gut instincts when they tell him something, and often his investigative process will be directed by those instincts. |
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| Strengths & Weaknesses | Deschanel is renowned as a very proficient doctor in his field, with his skills best suited to investigative medicine. He is also a very skilled surgeon. Deschanel suffers from coulrophobia - an abnormal, exaggerated and irrational fear of clowns. He can also be slightly spiteful on occasion. |
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| Ambitions | Deschanel doesn't seem to have any focused ambition in his professional life, preferring to focus on the moment at hand and just do his job. In his private life, he hopes to one day be able to live up to the role of a father that he always hoped he would be, to the son that his ex-girlfriend refuses him visiting rights to. | |
| Hobbies & Interests | Deschanel used to gamble as a regular hobby, though he has since tried to put that behind him as part of a previous stage in his life. He enjoys reading and listening to music, but most of all he enjoys sports in his spare time. | |
| Languages | Federation Standard |
| Personal History | Born in Philedelphia on Earth, Deschenel grew up in an - originally - average family. His father worked in the Starfleet Marine Corps as a fighter pilot, and his mother worked in the holonovel business, as a programmer for various background characters in the programs. However, his father served in the Federation-Cardassian Wars, and came back changed. David never understood the reasons why, but Hank began resorting to and relying heavily on alcohol, and became a very violent man domestically. After a serious incident when Hank hurt David's brother Jared, the two were taken off their parents, and moved in with their grandfather, who cared for them and brought them up for the rest of their young lives. David later learned that his father had, while in a drunken stupor, killed David's mother Emily, and had since been jailed. From that point on, David's childhood life returned to that of normality, with him progressively getting better at his studies. As he went into college, he started studying criminology and sciences, specifically biology. Some suggested it was in part due to a feeling that David had never been able to help save his mother, though he never voiced the reasons for his interest to anyone. This choice of study eventually led to him attaining a Medical Doctorate, followed by a Bachelor's Degree in criminology whilst working at a civilian hospital in Washington. After finishing the basic period during which all new doctors must generalise, David began focusing on forensic medicine, work which took him off Earth and on to a Federation hospital ship. His work initially involved bodies of the dead, determining the cause of death, and identifying any abnormalities. Once his colleagues felt that he was competent enough with the scalpel, he began working on the bodies of the living; firstly to save their lives, but secondly to investigate the cause for their injuries. His work lent him to work with bladed, projectile and beam weapons, as well as poisons and various animal attacks, working to identify markers for each one, and in the case of poisons, synthesise or develop antidotes to them. It was through his progression in this area of work that Starfleet found him. The USS Archon had come across an outbreak which neither the ship's doctor, nor remote specialists from Starfleet Medical could identify, and they needed a cure fast. David was part of the team of civilian consultants brought onboard to focus on the problem, and synthesise an antidote as quickly as possible. The Archon was attacked as the team, with David at the forefront, had found the antidote, and the senior medical staff were all killed or severely injured. With the remaining Starfleet staff in shock, David instantly took control of the situation, prioritising wounded and working with both his fellow civilians and with the Starfleet staff to treat the wounded. Following the incident, the Chief of Starfleet Medical approached Deschanel, on recommendation from the Archon's Captain, and offered him a new prospect; if he enlisted at Starfleet Academy, he could be an officer in three to four years, and progress straight into active service without an internship after that. The Commander promised that he would have access to all the latest equipment, and be dealing with the most intriguing medical cases he'd ever come across. Always known to take a gamble, and pulled by the prospect of cases that would challenge his skills, David enrolled at Starfleet upon his next visit to Earth, and made it through the program in three years before being assigned a post at Starbase 192 near the Tholian border. David's Starfleet career has seen him through many many ordeals. Serving through the Dominion War, Deschanel was captured while working in the field, and was held captive and tortured for five weeks before being rescued by Starfleet personnel. Though the psychological scars of that ordeal seem to have healed and been dealt with, David's body still bears the marks of the event, which he decided not to get rid of. They have since served as a reminder to him of what can happen when two great powers go to war, and innocent men and women of their armed forces get pitted in life-or-death situations. He considers himself lucky to still be alive after the ordeal. During the war, David worked mostly on various starships going out to areas in dire need of field medicine, though he was still assigned to Starbase 192 during the majority of the war, returning there after each assignment for varying periods of time. It was during the latter stages of the war that he became involved with a civilian reporter, who had come out to the station to find information on Starfleet outposts near the front line. Eight months after they began seeing each other, David proposed to her. She refused to marry him, and left him that same day. David later learnt that she had given birth to a child, confirmed to be his, though communications between the two of them have, for reasons unknown to David, become tense and almost hostile, if not for their brief nature. She refuses to allow David to see his son, though he has since learnt through his colleagues and the security databases that his son was named Jeremy, After the end of the war, and shortly before Camilla left him to return to Earth, David had begun to consider assignment to starships, seeking more of the challenging cases that had drawn him to Starfleet, finally taking one such posting after Camilla had left, upon the USS Brussels, out near the Romulan border, up to the Galactic North. Over the next several years, David transferred to the USS Galileo, before being requested to transfer to the new Sentinel-class starship, the USS Eagle, bound for the Galactic South. After a two-year tour on the Eagle, David received orders to transfer to the Galaxy-class USS Nimitz as its chief medical officer, where he served for a further three years. Even after his years of service, the Galaxy class starship taught him a lot about dealing with a large population, including civilians. Though he had been assigned to a starbase's medical staff previously, it had largely been during war time, and his ship postings had mostly been to smaller ships; on the Nimitz, he was able to expand his skills as a general physician, dealing with a myriad of medical concerns both large and small, from members in uniform and without. It was with this new experience in mind that he accepted the request for him to be sent to take up a position as chief medical officer of Starbase 332; with a huge population it would still prove to be a challenge, but the taster of that work he had had on the Nimitz served to help prepare him. |
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| Service Record | --USS Archon - Civilian Consultant --Starfleet Academy --Starbase 192 - Medical Officer --Starbase 192 - Roaming Field Doctor --Starbase 192 - Assistant Chief of Medicine --USS Brussels - Assistant Chief Medical Officer --USS Galileo - Chief Medical Officer --USS Eagle - Chief Medical Officer --USS Nimitz - Chief Medical Officer --Starbase 332 - Chief Medical Officer |