Star Trek: Everything We NOW Know About The 25th Century

Admiral Beverly Crusher must have installed a revolving door at Starfleet Medical because, thanks once again to the events of The Last Generation, we know that she took up her old position as the head of the facility. This time, it came with a nice promotion, but it was hardly her first crack at the biobed.

Gates McFadden's absence for The Next Generation's sophomore year was that she left the Enterprise to head up Starfleet Medical. In reality, then-showrunner Maurice Hurley fired McFadden, only for her to return the following year when Hurley exited.

That would have taken place around 2364 and 2365, which is a good thirty or so years earlier than her eventual posting. However, Star Trek: Nemesis, via a deleted scene, ends with Crusher resuming her duties as head of Starfleet Medical. The film, set in 2379, shows her at the facility, some twenty two years before she finally returns in Star Trek: Picard.

While much of the time between her first and second tenures were spent on ships named Enterprise, the time between her second and third tenures were spent operating her own ship, the SS Eleos-XII, with her son, Jack. This was a far more rugged lifestyle, helping where they could, keeping mobile to avoid any who might try to gain leverage to Admiral Picard via his son.

Taking this experience into her third tenure, after a spot of Changeling identification, offers Crusher and Starfleet Medical a new perspective on what they can achieve. The Federation and Starfleet are, arguably, at their height of influence and power as they head into the 25th Century, though there is now a leader who understands the lives lived by those outside of the main supply routes. Starfleet Medical of the 25th Century, thanks to Admiral Crusher and influence from such doctors as Bashir and the Emergency Medical Hologram, must easily be one of the most well-positioned facilities to do good in the galaxy.