Star Trek: 10 Things You Didn't Know About Julian Bashir

For anyone taking them, medical finals probably do feel like life and death, though Doctor Bashir was embellishing just a little all the same in his attempts to win over a Bajoran woman at the start of Q-Less. His dramatic recounting might have culminated in the dizzying last-second inspiration of "pericardial membrane," but it was a prior mix-up — "preganglionic fibre" for "postganglionic nerve" (Oh, if I had a penny!) — that had cost Bashir the top graduating spot of 'Valedictorian' for second place 'Salutatorian' instead.

In the very first drafts of the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine bible, the then "DR. JULIAN AMOROS" is said to have "graduated second in his class," but no particular reason is provided. By the time of the revised bible of 10 September 1992, as given in The Making of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Amoros had become Bashir and the preganglionic/postganglionic explanation for missing out on that farewell speech at graduation had been added.

There was always something eminently odd, however, about the mistake in the first place. Lethean Altovar put it best in Distant Voices when he said to Bashir, "But pre-ganglionic fibres and post-ganglionic nerves aren't anything alike. Any first-year student could tell them apart". According to the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion, that line was actually included by episode co-writer Robert Hewitt Wolfe as a nod to his wife Celeste. A "pre-vet" at the time, Celeste had pointed out that, for pre- and post-ganglionic fibres and nerves, "no one [in the medical field] would make such a mistake".

In Distant Voices, it was implied that Bashir deliberately got the question wrong merely because he didn't want the pressure of being Valedictorian. Later, ganglions and nerve fibres would connect — recognisably this time — into something much bigger.