Beverly Crusher was not a good doctor.
I don't like Pulaski as a person but when there was a contagion she instituted a quarantine. Crusher just went around touching people with her bare hands no matter what was happening. Called headaches (a symptom!) impossible because they had been "cured" centuries ago.
Honestly, Crusher's performance was colored by having been there for season 1, when the show was a much more half-baked lump of bland utopianism. So she had to enthuse about what Gene Roddenberry thought medicine would be like in the future.
My headcanon is she bought too deeply into Federation/Star Fleet propaganda to be an effective physician. She was posted to the flagship because of her loyalty, but had to be re-educated to actually serve.
(Hence season 2.)
(Hence season 2.)
In season 1, she's telling everyone the Glorious Federation made germs go extinct and we have a vaccine for papercuts. In season 2, she is gone and replaced with the stern, efficient, and ruthless Pulaski. In season 3, she returns, her enthusiasm somewhat leavened with skill.
