Fourth-year medical student John Carter's first day as Dr. Peter Benton's new sub-I surgical intern at Chicago's County General Hospital begins badly. First, Carter's flight is delayed and he gets stuck in traffic, making him very late for work. After Benton chastises him, Carter proves to be unprepared for the day's surgeries.

While Dr. Mark Greene becomes accustomed to his new responsibilities as the attending emergency room doctor, he greets the new group of medical students, including attractive, sensitive Harper Tracy. Carter and Tracy become interested in dating each other.

Dr. Susan Lewis feels betrayed when Greene appoints the difficult but competent Kerry Weaver, who walks with a metal cane, to work under him as chief resident instead of Susan's friend, Kathy Pratt. Greene tries to give Dr. Douglas Ross extra hours because Ross needs the money. But Greene is thwarted by Dr. Neal Bernstein, the man who oversees Ross' pediatric fellowship. Bernstein thinks Ross has an attitude problem.

Nurse Carol Hathaway must ride with the paramedics in order to qualify for recertification. Later, she confronts the alcoholic father of a young boy about caring for him.

Among the victims of a gang shooting is a pregnant woman who begins premature labor. Ross tries to save her. Later, the perpetrator is brought in dead on arrival from a close-range shotgun blast.

Finally, Benton and married physical therapist Jeanie Boulet become intimately involved. At the end of his day, Greene barely catches the last train home to Milwaukee.

Lewis clashes with new chief resident Kerry Weaver, who antagonizes everyone with her toughness. Lewis then must remove her infant niece, Susie, from hospital day care to treat her for a fever. She is surprised to learn that her sister Chloe, the child's mother, secretly terminated her computer studies.

While caring for a young bank robber who got hit by a car while fleeing the crime scene, Lewis opens a bag of stolen money which is rigged to explode green dye all over.

Ross treats a 9-year-old pyromaniac, Byron, for burns, leaving him to be psychologically evaluated. But the boy sets the hospital bed on fire, angering Weaver, who feels Ross should have let the boy leave with his mother instead.

Carter struggles to regain Benton's good will and impress Harper. Benton accidentally meets Jeanie's husband and later tells her that she should inform him of their love affair. Greene laments over his long commute home to Milwaukee.

While Hathaway rides with paramedics to qualify for certification, she meets a paramedic with a bad attitude, "Shep" Shepherd, but soon gets to know and like him.

Ross confronts the mother, Mei-Sun, of a 4-year-old AIDS patient, Chia-Chia, after the child overdoses on medication. Then he finds out a pediatric clinic resident is responsible and ends up in an argument with his supervisor, head of pediatrics Dr. Neal Bernstein.

Benton allows Carter to do his first unsupervised surgery on an alcoholic, Ed. Trying to impress Harper, Carter accidentally perforates Ed's liver, necessitating emergency surgery by attending physician Angela Hicks. The patient dies of heart failure, Carter's first loss.

In her last run with the paramedics, Hathaway helps Shep haul in an obese mentally ill man, who dies of a stroke. Later, Shep struggles to bring in a man on illicit drugs. Hathaway distracts the patient while Shep sneaks up and injects him with a sedative. At the end of the day, Hathaway and Shep kiss and plan a date.

Lewis and Weaver continue to argue, calling upon Greene to mediate when they disagree on a medical procedure. Greene supports Weaver. Chloe, high on drugs or alcohol, leaves town without baby Susie.

Benton still wants Jeanie to tell her husband about their love affair, but Jeanie avoids Benton. Rather than tell her husband, she feels that she must end the affair.

Nurse Goldman interviews Greene and the other doctors for the nursing newsletter. Greene tells his wife, Jennifer, that he wants to stay at Ross' home a few nights a week because the commute from Chicago to Milwaukee is too long. On Greene's first night at Ross', he meets a stewardess, Hulda, who is romantically involved with Ross.

Frustrated by Jeanie's decision to end their love affair, Benton punches an obnoxious salesman and dislocates his own finger. Hicks chooses Carter to replace Benton in surgery. Even worse, Hicks tells Benton to consult with Jeanie about his finger.

Ross continues to allow Greene to use his apartment during the week because of Greene's long commute. Greene gets asked to accompany Ross and two of his dates for a night out on the town when Ross accidentally brings home medical supply salesperson Linda Farrell while his stewardess date, Hulda, is still there. Ross personally attends to 4-year-old AIDS patient Chia-Chia when the child returns to the emergency room.

Lewis treats a glutton for gastritis, but his voracious appetite gets him in even greater trouble. She also helps a 14-year-old pregnant girl. Lewis's work performance suffers while she cares for baby Susie. But she becomes defensive when Weaver gives her some of the easier patient cases to handle. Since her sister Chloe left town, Lewis begins to realize that she may have to give Susie up for adoption.

While he cares for an abandoned elderly woman, Greene tries to keep peace between Lewis and Weaver, but neither woman appreciates it. Ross is also displeased with Weaver's decisions, but Greene continues to support her.

Hathaway becomes more involved with Shep and worries about his safety after he chases a gun-wielding robber. Shep is pleased that she cares about him.

Carter and Harper kiss.

Everyone is relieved that it is Weaver's day off. While Benton's injured finger heals, Carter continues to dazzle the hospital staff, including Harper, with his surgical expertise.

Young AIDS patient Chia-Chia comes back, feverish and vomiting. Ross diagnoses him with meningitis and recommends a painful treatment. But Greene tells his mother, Mei-Sun, that the boy only has a few days to live no matter what. This seriously angers Ross. Mei-Sun brings Chia-Chia home to live his last days in peace.

Benton treats a battered wife who refuses to have her husband arrested for his repeated beatings, saying she just fell down and hurt herself. The hospital reports the beating. Unfortunately, the police officer who responds is the victim's husband. Benton reports the situation to another cop, who later brings in the husband badly beaten up. The cop tells Benton a story about how the husband just fell down and hurt himself.

Benton and Hathaway treat a motorcycle accident victim whose arm was severed at the elbow. After getting caught stealing morphine and injecting it, the victim's wife reveals that they purposefully chopped his arm off with an ax to collect insurance money. To her dismay, the skilled surgeons reattach the arm and ruin the plan.

Lewis agonizes over what to do with baby Susie. She consults an attorney about putting her up for adoption, checks with Greene about possibly working part time and makes a futile attempt to get help from her parents, Henry and Cookie. Finally, Lewis decides to adopt the baby herself.

Carter is ecstatic to discover his first malignant cancer in a patient. The patient is not as excited.

Greene sees Ross and Harper coming out of the shower in Ross' apartment and angrily berates him. Later, Harper confesses to Carter about having sex with Ross and says she is not interested in Ross romantically. Ross tries to convince Carter to forgive Harper, but Carter ignores them both.

A huge gang fight lands several nasty characters in the emergency room. A police officer brings in a suspect, Jorge, who was bitten by a police dog. While Jeanie and Weaver try to treat him, Jorge becomes violent and the new admissions clerk, Randi, smashes him over the head with Weaver's metal cane. Later, the staff places bets on why Randi once served time in prison.

Jeanie transfers to the emergency room as a physician assistant. When Weaver's earlobe gets cut in the fight with Jorge, Benton is displeased to have to show Jeanie the stitching procedure.

Lewis gets upset with Benton for bringing in a domineering heart specialist, Dr. Vucelich, on one of her cases. An unidentified girl is brought in suffering from epileptic seizures. Weaver discovers she is deaf and communicates via sign language.

Hathaway buys a house, and a notary public, Abraham Zimble, brings the paperwork to the hospital for her to sign. Zimble loses consciousness, and Hathaway gets him to stamp the documents moments before he dies.

Ross wants to keep a 10-year-old boy under 24-hour observation for a concussion, but Bernstein orders the boy sent home. Ross angrily disobeys and admits the boy, angering Bernstein so much that he informs Ross that his fellowship is over at the end of the year. Greene confronts Ross about his recent reckless personal behavior and professional misconduct. Ross has no explanation and doesn't seem to care that he lost the fellowship.

Ross takes a job in a private pediatric office. While driving home one night, he stops because of a flat tire. A panicked child runs up to Ross and leads him to where his brother is trapped in a rural storm drain that is rapidly filling with rainwater.

Ross frees the seriously injured boy, but there's no way to get him to a hospital except to ride to County General in a passing news helicopter. A reporter rides along broadcasting the incident and making Ross famous. The boy lives.

An 8-year-old girl, a victim of a hit-and-run driver, is brought into the emergency room unconscious. Although her parents are estranged, they comfort each other when the girl dies.

An elderly patient comes in complaining that she feels light-headed. Greene discovers the cause: She's been smoking marijuana to alleviate her glaucoma.

Jeanie publicly contradicts Benton, and he retaliates by assigning a lot of paperwork to her.

Ross, now a media hero for saving a boy's life, is honored at a black tie banquet. Still angry at County General, he prepares a bitter acceptance speech but becomes gracious when he hears the wonderful things that Greene says about him. At Bernstein's reluctant request, Ross agrees to remain on duty at County General, but he clashes with Greene over which of two accident victims is more in need of help. Later, Ross falsifies a patient's report because he disagrees with the actions of the patient's health maintenance organization.

Meanwhile, Lewis is desperate to find a baby-sitter for her baby niece. She considers asking an anemic patient, who has experience as a nanny, to care for her during the day. Unfortunately, the woman is too sick. Lewis' father agrees to care for the baby at Lewis' home on the nights Lewis works. His wife disapproves.

Carter reconsiders his diagnosis of a young man with facial paralysis and must find him quickly to redo the examination--or risk the boy's life. Overcompensating on his next patient, Carter orders an extensive battery of tests, which reveal something that impresses Vucelich.

Ross, Greene and Hathaway are astounded to learn the reason why a teenaged girl tried to commit suicide: When her mother died, the girl became pregnant after seeking solace with her brother. Shep accidentally offends Hathaway, a suicide survivor, with a comment about it.

Greene treats a man who was injured reenacting the American Civil War and claims he was hit by a cannon during a mock battle.

Jeanie gets assigned to work with Benton--and he learns that she filed for a divorce from her husband. Carter and Harper renew their relationship.

When Lewis saves a patient who was misdiagnosed by another hospital, Weaver strongly urges her to deliver a speech on the incident at a conference in Miami, Florida. Lewis refuses the career-enhancing opportunity in favor of caring for baby Susie.

Greene treats an accident victim. He learns from a policeman that the victim's wife hit him with her car. Suddenly realizing that it may not have been an accident, Greene hurries to the patient's room and stops the wife from using a pillow to smother her unfaithful husband.

Hathaway pities a paranoid schizophrenic architect who refuses to take his medication and leaves his residential care facility. When she finds him living on the streets, she brings him pencils and blanket.

A man whose wife admitted him for detoxification escapes through a bathroom ceiling.

Hathaway doesn't know what to do with all of her childhood belongings when her mother sells the family house. Shep thinks she should keep everything.

Carter and Harper try unsuccessfully to find time alone with each other. Greene asks Ross to work a night shift, but Ross refuses, citing an important personal obligation--later revealed to be dinner with his mother. Carter and Benton find a strong supporter in Vucelich.

Greene rushes to his wife, Jennifer, when he hears that she was in a car accident. She's okay--and so is her lover, Craig.

Greene's estranged wife, Jennifer, asks to take their daughter away for the holidays. Meanwhile, Greene consults with the hospital attorney about a wrongful death suit in the case of a pregnant woman who died under his care last winter. The attorney advises him to settle the matter out of court, which would look better on his record than a monetary judgement against him in a failed court case. Greene insists on battling it in court and trying to win.

Young members of a Christmas ice skating show come to the emergency room after getting injured by an ice-cleaning machine driven by a drunk. Then a man who strongly resembles Santa Claus comes in with a hand injury from making toys. He is glad the toys are all done so that he won't disappoint any children.

Benton is surprised to be invited by Vucelich to consult with his patient about undergoing Vucelich's new clamp-and-run surgical procedure--until Benton sees that the patient is black. He is further dismayed when Carter is able to convince the patient's wife that her husband should consent to the procedure, and Vucelich invites Carter to watch.

A survivor of Nazi atrocities is treated in the emergency room after being the victim of a carjacking. Her baby granddaughter was accidentally taken with the car. The woman's faith in God is restored when the baby is found.

Meanwhile, a group of gang members brings in their beloved priest, who has been shot. Although the priest denies it before dying, the gang members believe he was shot by a rival gang and vow revenge.

Ross treats a boy who was accidentally shot in the shoulder by his father. Carter buys an expensive gift for Harper. Weaver receives a surprise visit from a former boyfriend from Zimbabwe. Hathaway volunteers the reluctant emergency room staff to sing Christmas carols. The staff holds the party at Hathaway's house, which is slowly falling apart.

Twenty-two children, ranging in age from six months to nine years, are found in a single apartment. The emergency room doctors find that one of them has cerebral palsy and all suffer from abuse, malnutrition, lice and a variety of other maladies. Later, a child welfare representative explains that they are from a number of different families whose parents are crack abusers.

Jeanie reminds Benton not to express his frustration by mistreating one of the young patients. Greene won't let any of the children go until he is sure they are okay. Shep makes another inadvertently offensive comment, bothering Benton.

Carter struggles to solve a dilemma posed by Vucelich, who wants a patient's cardiac output to increase so she can be transferred to a long-term care facility. Finally, Carter realizes that there is no solution. He befriends the woman's husband, Mr. Rubadoux, known as Ruby, which is disturbing because he can't help Ruby's wife.

Jennifer serves Greene with divorce papers at the hospital.

Jeanie thinks that Benton gave her a bad evaluation, but it's actually Hathaway who thinks that she's not aggressive enough for the emergency room. Jeanie rebuffs her conciliatory husband, Al.

Vucelich promotes Benton to research associate, with his own office and a substantial raise in pay.

A grossly obese 51-year-old woman thinks she has food poisoning, but her abdominal pains are caused by being pregnant with twins.

Both Greene and his young daughter, Rachel, are unhappy about the shared custody arrangement with Jennifer. Rachel wants her dad to come home.

After being unable to save an elderly cardiac patient referred to him by Vucelich, Carter is relieved not to have to tell her husband, Ruby, whom Carter had befriended. But when Ruby hears the bad news from the neurology department, he berates Carter for not being forthright.

When the victim of a terrible car accident is brought into the emergency room, Benton convinces Hicks that he is capable of operating on him in Vucelich's absence. But complications arise, and Vucelich has to come in and save the patient, humiliating Benton. Later, Benton and Jeanie go to a dinner party at Vucelich's house, both insisting that it is not a date.

Ross refuses to speak with his estranged father, who telephones repeatedly. Later, Ross reveals his anger at his father when he confronts a negligent father whose children were injured playing in traffic. Hathaway subdues Ross.

A drunken woman comes in severely ill, but the doctors cannot save her because she signed an order not to be resuscitated. This distresses her estranged daughter.

Jennifer sues Greene for full custody of Rachel. Also, the hospital wants to settle out of court with the family of the pregnant woman who died under Greene's care. Greene wants to prove his innocence in court, but he soon questions his abilities. On closer examination of the deceased patient's medical charts, Greene thinks that he did make a mistake.

With her house needing expensive repairs, Hathaway's work hours get reduced, and she becomes desperate. When a worm farmer comes in for treatment, she gives Hathaway some worms to start her own worm farm.

Weaver pressures Lewis to consider accepting the position of chief resident next year. Besides seeing less of Susie, Lewis would have to see more of Weaver. When Lewis finally becomes exasperated with Weaver's condescension, she yells at her. Weaver remarks that she's glad to see Lewis acting like a chief resident.

Benton is flattered that Vucelich wants to send him to Paris to present the clamp-and-run study they are working on. Meanwhile, Vucelich offers a large sum of money to anyone who can find him an aneurism for his study. Harper shows Carter an x-ray that she thinks displays one, but he says that it does not. However, Lewis tells Carter that it does, and when he shows it to Vucelich, Carter is unable to refuse the credit for finding the aneurism. Predictably, Harper is very mad when she finds out, and Carter tries to rectify the situation. Benton worries that Vucelich is unethically manipulating the data in his study by ignoring certain subjects.

Ross refers a depressed homosexual boy to the psychiatric department, but they never meet with the boy. Instead, the boy's father arrives, and the boy reverts to his macho behavior.

Benton confronts Vucelich with data showing that Vucelich's clamp-and-run surgical technique is not as effective as he reported. Vucelich defends himself and orders Benton taken off all of the day's surgeries. Later, Benton further argues with Vucelich that it is morally wrong and dangerous to manipulate the results in his favor. Vucelich removes Benton from his surgical team and tells the others that Benton quit. Finally, Benton attempts to report Vucelich, but while waiting to speak to an administrator, he loses his confidence and goes home, cursing his cowardice.

The doctors attend to an elderly woman who slipped on a patch of ice. It's the latest in a series of accidents she's had since she moved in with her daughter and her daughter's husband. The son-in-law, who is studying to be a psychotherapist, thinks that he may be subconsciously laying traps for the woman.

Also, a teenager loses control of his motorcycle, crashing it into the emergency room. Greene buys the damaged motorcycle and makes up a story that the kid can tell to avoid trouble with his father. T-Ball, a patient who frequently comes in faking illness so he can get drugs, claims that he has stomach pain. Despite Hathaway's warning, Jeanie does a blood test and finds out that T-Ball actually does have lead poisoning. And a drunken man, Nathan Conley, is brought into the emergency room. Later, his drunken girlfriend arrives. She refuses to tell Nathan that she has AIDS, so Lewis illegally reveals the news to him. Lewis berates Carter for not caring enough about the case.

Recently, Carter angered a patient's husband, Ruby, by not informing him that his wife was about to die. Now Ruby invites Jeanie to his wife's funeral, and Jeanie asks Carter to join her. Carter finally decides to go to the service and apologize to Ruby.

Carter finds Greene and Lewis acting especially friendly on the morning train, and soon everyone at the hospital thinks that they're dating each other. On Ross' birthday, his father, Ray Ross, tries unsuccessfully to reconcile with him.

When a sprinkler system malfunctions, eight women who are giving birth are transferred to the emergency room. One of the pregnant women is a crack addict who claims to have recovered. Jeanie doubts it until the woman refuses some crack her friends bring to her. Another pregnant patient is a 13-year-old girl whose baby will be adopted by a couple who brought her in. But when the teenager sees how cute the infant is, she decides to keep it.

After another doctor rudely commandeers Greene's delivery of a baby, Greene notices that there is a surprise twin coming out. Then another patient, a doctor who is limiting her own cancer treatment to protect her unborn child, requests that Greene deliver her baby. Three-time mother Monica Ford confidently refused prenatal care early in her pregnancy. Ross notices that her latest baby has dangerously low blood sugar and saves it. And patient Leslie Cameron reveals that she is actually a lesbian whose "perfect husband," a homosexual man, impregnated her so that she and her female lover could have a child together.

Benton is not given as many patients. He's angry because he knows it has to do with his disagreement with Vucelich. When Benton gets a patient who threw himself in front of a subway train, he goes to extremes to prove his worth and save the patient's life. Social workers visit Lewis' home to evaluate her to adopt Susie. It's a bad time for Lewis, and her home is a mess. After worrying and feeling intimidated by his competition, Carter has a great interview to progress academically and learns that Benton wrote a very complimentary letter of recommendation. Harper tests herself for pregnancy and discovers that she is not pregnant. Professional basketball player SCOTTIE PIPPEN visits the hospital.

After observing a proud father with his newborn child, Ross decides to visit his own father, Ray, at a hotel. Ross is surprised that not only is it a nice establishment, but Ray actually owns it. Ray blames himself for not being involved while Ross was growing up.

While illegally preparing methamphetamine, a mother of four causes an explosion and a huge apartment building fire. She rushes from the building holding her youngest child. Shep and another paramedic, Raul, enter the burning building unprotected to try to save the other kids. When Hathaway finds out that Shep and Raul were the ones involved in the rescue, she anxiously checks every ambulance that comes in.

Finally, Shep is brought in with broken bones and assorted injuries. He and Raul saved the other children, but Raul fell through the floor and was burned over 90 percent of his body. Shep apologizes to his heroic dying friend.

Later, Carter questions his ability to be a surgeon because he became nauseous and was unable to operate on Raul's disfigured body. Benton tells him that he did as well as could be expected for his level of experience.

During all of the chaos in the emergency room, Lewis does not respond to her pager because she is attending her final interview to determine if she can adopt Susie. The interview is a success. Later, Chloe returns and surprises Lewis in the hospital nursery.

Meanwhile, Ross plans to meet his father, Ray, at a basketball game, but Ray does not come. When Ross finds him having dinner with an attractive woman, Karen Hines, who Ray claims is his boss, Ross gives up trying to reconcile with him.

Lewis saves the life of Freddie Robinson, a drugged and drunk driver. She must inform Robinson's unbelieving mother that he killed a young girl and hospitalized three others. Benton and Ross perform tests on one of Robinson's victims, Brett Bowman, who was treated three months earlier. They discover that he has a cancerous tumor, which Ross did not notice before. The hospital lawyers tell Ross to withhold this information from Brett and remove himself from the case. But Benton defies Greene's orders and notifies Brett's grandfather. Greene angrily tells Benton that he is overcompensating for his guilt about not exposing Vucelich's clamp-and-run deception.

Meanwhile, Chloe thinks that since she has not been drunk in five months and has a new fianci, she should be allowed to care for her child, Susie, again. Lewis refuses and warns the hospital child-care staff not to let Chloe have the baby.

When Carter finds out that he is accepted into the residency program at County General, he celebrates by taking Harper to a deluxe hotel for lunch and champagne. He fails to finish treating an asthmatic patient, who is later diagnosed with leukemia. Hicks berates Carter for drinking alcohol during his work shift.

With two nurses out sick, a temporary nursing agency sends a replacement--Hathaway. A disgusting but friendly homeless man is endangered by Hathaway and Jeanie because of a continuing conflict between the nurses and the physician assistants.

After Greene buys colored contact lenses and grows a small beard, he gets cast in a program-length commercial by Iris, one of his patients. Unfortunately, he learns that the commercial is for a baldness product.

Feeling responsible for Raul's death, Shep thinks he is being punished when a clumsy rookie is assigned to him as his new partner.

It's the busiest night ever in the emergency room. Ross is out sick, and Greene must work overnight for the fourth night in a row. With dozens of patients and only a few doctors, Morgenstern refuses to allow the exhausted Greene to stop working.

Lewis cannot help because she must meet with her lawyer to plan the fight against Chloe for custody of Susie. Later, Lewis terminates her weak-willed attorney. Chloe tries to visit Susie but finds only Carter and Greene, who tell her that the baby is fine.

Greene gets upset when a hospital official discharges a woman with symptoms of an impending stroke because her health insurance doesn't provide for treatment of a stroke. Then he witnesses a terrible accident and assists in the rescue. When Greene is unable to get a mangled car door open to free a little girl, Shep uses a powerful tool to open it.

A patient, Louis Etheridge, is incoherent and experiencing heart pain. Later it is revealed that Louis' wife has been secretly putting a drug in his coffee that causes a potentially fatal reaction when mixed with alcohol. Greene is mystified that Louis' wife would knowingly risk her husband's life until he finds out that Louis is an alcoholic who becomes extremely violent when drunk. Greene reports the wife abuse, to her relief.

Carter's punishment for drinking alcohol while on duty is to be taken off surgery and assigned night shifts. He's glad not to be suspended from the residency program.

Greene gets angry at Benton, who failed to respond quickly to Greene's page. Finally, Greene clears out the crowded emergency room by grabbing medical supplies and charging into the waiting room to treat all of the remaining patients.

Rumors spread about Benton's bad working relationship with Ross. After carelessly misdiagnosing a patient, Benton admits his responsibility, which inspires him to officially report Vucelich's fraudulent clamp-and-run findings.

Iris, a commercial director and former patient of Greene's, returns. Morgenstern asks her to record the emergency room activity for efficiency evaluations. Later, Greene, whose ex-wife is the only woman he has ever made love to, has sex with Iris.

Carter competes with new surgical intern Dale Edson, from Harvard University. Not only has Dale performed many small surgical operations that Carter has not, Dale is also Harper's former lover. Carter manipulates Benton and Hicks to let him perform surgeries, but one patient is already dead, and the other only needs a toothpick removed. Finally, Carter aggressively replaces Dale and solves a mysterious problem with a young beating victim. Disgusted with Carter's behavior, Harper ends their relationship.

When Ross' father learns about Ross' offer of financial assistance to a boy whose cancer he did not notice, he sends Ross a large amount of cash. At first, Ross wants to send it back, but he has trouble getting his own money out of the bank and reconsiders. Then he goes to visit his father at the hotel. Instead, he finds his father's attractive business associate, Karen, and has a few drinks with her.

Lewis goes to court to gain custody of Susie, and the judge informs her that there is no chance of her succeeding now that Chloe is behaving responsibly again. Lewis must allow Chloe to visit the baby three nights a week. Reluctantly, she brings Susie to Chloe, who is living with their parents.

Hathaway worries when Shep's anger over Raul's death manifests itself in disturbing ways. Shep wants to avoid coming to work at all. He also remarks that he doesn't want his own children to live in the city and responds to two situations with excessive violence.

After Chloe takes Susie away, Lewis deals with her loneliness by focusing intently on her job, which impresses Weaver. Weaver and Greene recommend aborting a pregnant woman's fetus because of her extremely high blood pressure, until Lewis discovers that the cause is a tumor in the patient's adrenal gland, which can safely be removed. Lewis also learns the reason that a man almost overdosed on his medication--he can't read.

When Ross and Benton work together to save a little girl who was hurt in a water heater explosion, Ross begrudgingly admits his respect for Benton's skill. Benton finds out that his efforts to expose Vucelich's fraudulent clamp-and-run study apparently had an effect. An addendum is added mentioning the deviant results, but Benton is told that it was always intended. Weaver is disappointed when Benton is named resident of the year instead of her. She's also surprised to learn that Vucelich nominated Benton.

Greene gets upset at an oncologist for mistreating an ex-prostitute, Loretta. Diagnosed with cervical cancer, she underwent a radical hysterectomy recently and is suffering from radiation burns and numerous other complaints. While making final divorce arrangements, Greene and Jennifer have sex but still plan on getting divorced.

Still angry about Raul's death, Shep gets into trouble when he fights with the brother of a gunshot victim. After Hathaway helps a blind woman who bit off the fingertip of a would-be mugger, the robber comes in to the emergency room, and Hathaway matches the incriminating fingertip to him.

Carter is depressed to learn that he must forgo a plastic surgery elective and work extra time with Ross in pediatrics in order to graduate with his class. He mistakenly thinks that it will be easy work. Ross' father, Ray, disappears with a lot of money belonging to Karen, Ray's attractive business associate. Ross has sex with her.

Ross tries to repay his father's business associate, Karen, after his father leaves with a lot of her money. Ross asks his mother, Sarah Ross, for help with the situation.

Weaver tells Greene that she will consider supporting Lewis for a position as chief resident if Greene will help Weaver become an emergency room attending physician. Later, Greene agrees to care for the children of a reformed prostitute, Loretta, for one night while she undergoes more cancer surgery. Iris and Greene continue their relationship.

When Shep is investigated for getting into a fight with the brother of a gunshot victim, Hathaway reluctantly lies to protect Shep because she did not witness the entire incident. She worries about Shep's mental state.

Carter learns some new basketball trivia from a 10-year-old female basketball player who needs a liver transplant, which prevents her from playing in a tournament.

Jeanie's estranged husband, Al, thinks he has influenza, but Jeanie must give him worse news: He contracted HIV. Jeanie must also undergo an HIV test herself.

Lewis, who is consulting a therapist because she misses Susie, overreacts when a young mother brings her obviously abused child to the emergency room. Weaver must subdue Lewis.

Police officer Al Grabarsky and nurse Lydia Wright, who have been dating for some time, get engaged to be married.

When Carter is scheduled to receive his medical doctor's degree at the graduation ceremony, he is instead comforting a critically ill 10-year-old girl in need of a liver transplant.

Hardly anyone on the e.r. staff approves of Greene and Weaver's selections of Lewis as chief resident and Weaver as an attending physician for next year. Greene realizes that he must now work with Weaver every day. He's further upset when he learns that Lewis refused the offer. Jennifer informs Greene that she is getting married next year. Loretta asks Greene to become her children's guardian, but Greene doesn't want the responsibility.

After learning that her husband, Al, contracted HIV, Jeanie tests herself for the virus and awaits the results. She advises Benton to test himself as well.

A pharmacy calls Ross with a question about a prescription for Karen. Ross thinks that he did not write the prescription for as large a quantity of pills as the pharmacy claims. Karen gets mad and leaves abruptly when Ross questions her.

Although he initially chooses another supervising resident for his work next year, Carter reconsiders and chooses Benton to supervise him. Benton and Vucelich meet in the elevator and have a final discussion about Vucelich's study.

Hathaway becomes angry with health insurance providers after treating several patients who were victimized by cost-cutting measures, including a newborn who was sent home before a congenital heart condition could be detected and an injured child in great pain who was transferred to another hospital because of insurance restrictions. She also makes an appointment for Shep to consult a therapist about his violent behavior, but he refuses to go. Finally, Hathaway quits her job in exasperation and tells Shep that she will leave him if he doesn't get counseling.

An elderly patient runs around the hospital nude.