Martin Sorenson
Male

Place of Origin: Earth

Height: 185 cm
Weight: 78 kg
Hair Color: Reddish blonde/brown
Eye Color: Blue

Physical Description: Medium tall with a slim-to-average build. Typically wears his hair short, but does not tend to keep it as short or neat as the military style favored by most humans in Starfleet. Not terribly athletic but health-conscious so he makes an effort to stay fit and trim. Occasionally has a slight limp due to regenerated nerves and muscle in his left foot.

General Overview: Martin is a brilliant and dedicated doctor. Though outwardly reserved and mild-mannered, he has an active intellect and lively curiosity. An observer by both nature and training, he likes to understand what makes people tick, though he primarily uses that talent to help those in his care. Knowing that most people are not at their best when seeing a doctor, he tries to be patient and understanding so that people will be comfortable discussing their medical issues with him. However, in an emergency that can fall away in an instant. More than one crewman has been shocked to have kindly Dr. Sorenson yelling at him to stop standing around like a lummox and help with the wounded. In a similar manner, though he’s usually fairly calm and easy-going, he can be passionate and even intractable when it comes to things he feels strongly about.

Temperamentally, he’s inclined toward pacifism and as Starfleet was associated with military action through most of his early teen years, he did not originally consider it as an option. Hence he joined Starfleet later in life, after earning his medical degree and practicing as a doctor both in research and clinical settings. While he’s committed to the peacekeeping, exploration and humanitarian missions of Starfleet, he is still not always comfortable with the more military aspects.

Strengths & Weaknesses
Strengths: Martin is dedicated, compassionate and highly intelligent. His interests are wide-ranging and he has enough knowledge of sociology and counseling to understand the importance of social and cultural factors on patient outcomes. He takes the philosophy that patients should be viewed holistically as people rather than as collections of symptoms and tries to transmit that attitude to medical personnel around him. He cares deeply about his patients and is willing to go the extra mile for them, whether that means working nonstop for a cure or just finding ways to bolster mental and emotional health to ensure a full recovery.

Weaknesses: Martin is a Doctor first, a Starfleet officer second (possibly third, behind being a person who obeys his conscience). If it comes down to doing what’s best for a patient or obeying an order, he will choose the patient every time. The tenacity and commitment that’s a strength in patient care has a flip side in stubbornness, and when a patient doesn’t make it, in guilt and self-recrimination.
Martin is good at putting patients at ease in a clinical setting, but he finds ‘small talk’ awkward and often finds it difficult to connect with people in casual social interaction. Never quite feeling as though he belongs, a seemingly selfless devotion to patients masks a need to feel that he is contributing and a longing to feel part of something larger than himself.

Ambitions: At a conscious level, to be the best doctor he can be and make a difference in the lives of his patients. Deep down he keeps searching for connection, meaning, or just a new horizon.

Hobbies & Interests: Avid reader with an eclectic taste in music, he enjoys puzzles and can rarely let go of one until it’s solved. Perhaps partly due to his father’s influence, he’s somewhat of a xenophile and loves learning about other species/cultures.

Languages: Standard, and though not fluent has developed basic competency in several languages through volunteer work, including Cardassian, Romulan, and Orion.

Martin Daniel Sorenson was born in Minneapolis-St Paul to Nils and Amelia Sorenson. A few years after Martin’s birth, his father settled down to a university position as a professor of xenosociology having previously served as an analyst for the Federation Diplomatic Corps. Despite best intentions to become a family man, his father was frequently absent during Martin’s childhood, due to calls for consulting or development projects on worlds seeking Federation membership. Hence, although more like his father in many ways, Martin was always closest to his mother, who worked at the UMinn hospital as a counselor specializing in victims of trauma.

Sensitive and intellectually ahead of most of his age group, throughout childhood and adolescence Martin had a difficult time relating to his peers. He tended to gravitate toward older groups where he fit in with respect to academics and intellectual interests but was somewhat out of his depth socially. Early acceptance to college only exacerbated the situation. Despite eventually finding his level in medical school, the sense of never quite fitting in anywhere has never really left him.

Although the combination of exceptional intelligence and a father who encouraged him to study subjects usually considered well beyond high school level qualified him for early admission, Martin lacked focus during his first year in college, too interested in everything to settle on one or even two subjects as majors. With the Dominion War in full swing, his father was called on frequently for input on analysis of Breen or Cardassian actions and his mother took on extra case loads, leaving Martin even more adrift. A turning point came after the war when his parents decided to answer a call to help rebuild devastated Cardassian society and allowed Martin to come with them. While his parents worked in their respective areas, he found a volunteer position in a medical aide station helping to process patients. It was largely clerical work, but in interviewing those coming for aide and doing follow-ups, he saw the difference the medics made in the lives of people debilitated by injuries and scarcity of resources. When he returned to earth the following year he had a solid goal to become a doctor. Fortunately, he enjoyed and excelled in chemistry and biology, so he had already met most of the basic course requirements. His father saw to it that he received credit for interstellar service experience, so he graduated on time despite his year away. He was accepted to Johns Hopkins Medical College and graduated at the top of his class.

Upon graduating, he was offered and accepted a position at a prestigious research hospital where he quickly came to be well regarded. However, though the work was top level, he began to feel as though something was missing. At first he thought it was because Dr. Elizabeth Watson, with whom he’d fallen in love and formed a serious relationship during residency, was on the other side of the continent pursuing a specialty in virology. Both had expected that after she completed her training they’d reunite and eventually marry, but between distance and the demands of their work, over time the relationship fell apart. It ended amicably but was still very painful to Martin. He had barely started to get past that loss when his mother was killed in a freak hovercar accident. Feeling as though the bottom had dropped out, he tried to cope by throwing himself into his work, but even after he had mentally checked off passing through every stage of grief, he still felt as though he was sleeping walking through his life. Hoping to reconnect with what had originally motivated him to go into medicine, he took a leave of absence to work with Doctors without Borders.

His first assignment was serving at a refugee camp for people displaced by renewed Klingon expansion. Compared to the hospital he’d worked in, the facilities were poor and over-extended, but Martin found the work both challenging and rewarding. The variety of patients from different species was also well beyond what he’d ever encountered even in a large metropolitan center on earth. It was fascinating, but sometimes quite frustrating due to widely differing cultural assumptions. He found himself so over his head in dealing with a group of refugees from an Orion colony that he resorted to contacting his father for advice on handling the cultural disconnects. The experience impressed on him the necessity of understanding more than a patient’s physiology in order to treat them effectively, and the comms home for advice and guidance re-newed a relationship with his father that had suffered after the loss of his mother, who had always been the bridge between them.

He was nearing the end of his commitment with DWOB and beginning to consider returning to earth and transfering to a position that allowed more direct interaction with patients when a call came for aid to the Romulan Empire in wake of the Hobus supernova. Martin immediately opted to volunteer to meet the call for doctors in response to the crisis. However, due to increasing Klingon aggression and uncertainty about reception from the disarrayed Romulan Empire, humanitarian response was being overseen by Starfleet. Martin had previously met some Starfleet personnel during his time on Cardassia, but primarily security forces and engineering corps. Due to the large number of casualties and other issues stretching Starfleet resources, there were few medical personnel to spare, so those on the ground had been mostly civilian volunteers. Traveling on a starship and working alongside Starfleet medics gave him a new perspective on the organization. Although relief efforts were abandoned after a few months due to increasing hostilities on all sides, by that time Martin had decided that Starfleet was the best place to do the sort of work that he wanted to do.

Upon returning to earth, he enlisted in Starfleet, which was happy to recruit an experienced physician. Given provisional status as an Ensign, he went through Officer Candidate School (OCS) concurrent with an internship at Starfleet Medical Center in San Francisco. Upon completion of that course, he was assigned to the USS Atlantis where he served as a general medical officer. The ship saw three engagements during which he performed admirably, in one case picking up directing operations in medbay when the CMO was incapacitated. In light of that and his previous experience in overseeing hospital staff, he was promoted to LT JG and Assistant CMO.

Near the end of 2390 the Atlantis was ambushed by two unknown vessels and sustained extensive damage. During the incident Martin earned a commendation for pulling wounded crewmen out of a compartment compromised by a plasma breach. However, his left foot was severely burned in the process, requiring that he remain at Starbase 371 for treatment and rehab. When he recovered, Martin was promoted to LT and assigned to USS Vesta.

2376 – accompanied parents on humanitarian aide mission to Cardassia following the Dominion War
2383 – completed medical training and took a position as a doctor at the Mayo Clinic
2385 – joined Doctors without Borders
Service Record:
2388 – enlisted in Starfleet, Officer Candidate School (OCS) concurrent with internship at Starfleet Medical Center in San Francisco – Ensign
2389 – assigned to USS Atlantis as a staff medical officer, later promoted to Assistant CMO – LT JG
2391 – assigned as CMO to USS VESTA – LT
2392 – promoted to LT Commander
2396 – promoted to Commander