Star Trek: Picard season 3's promotion of Dr. Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden) to the Admiral in charge of Starfleet Medical raises questions about whether Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's Dr. Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig) was ever offered the position. There's no doubt that Beverly Crusher earned her promotion during the grueling struggle against the Borg and Changeling alliance, and their attack on Starfleet and the Federation. It was thanks to the work of Dr. Crusher that every assimilated Starfleet officer had the Borg DNA removed from their genetic code. She also pioneered new techniques to unmask the remaining members of the rogue Changeling schism led by Captain Vadic (Amanda Plummer).
Beverly Crusher's Star Trek: Picard promotion came after she spent over 20 years caring for those on the fringes of Frontier space while she raised her son Jack Crusher (Ed Speleers). But was Dr. Julian Bashir ever offered the Head of Starfleet Medical position during this time thanks to his own impressive career? It was Bashir who did pioneering work to cure the effects of the Quickening, a devastating disease engineered by the Dominion. He also did considerable research into the Jem'Hadar and their reliance on ketracel white, making him an ideal candidate for the position at the top of Starfleet Medical. However, despite Julian's successes, there are also some potential barriers to his promotion.
