Austin sprays a subpoena server with mace, inspiring his fellow servers to wage war on the hospital. Hancock tries to counsel a woman in her late forties whose health is severely threatened by her pregnancy but who refuses to let the baby be delivered early. Kronk finally returns to Chicago, dressed in Masai garb, and tries to reconnect with Diane.

Austin's cystic-fibrosis patient is just one of four patients needing transplants who have to wait in fear and hope when a potential donor appears but is prematurely pronounces dead and entered into the donor system by the inexperienced Eggert.

Kronk puts himself and Grad into a difficult position when he treats an old hockey pal who turns up after just being released from jail with a bullet in him. Wilkes and his wife face some basic decisions about their lives when they must decide what sort of neighborhood to move to.

Aaron's practical joker college roommate arrives for a visit and announces that he wants Aaron to marry his widow, Aaron's former girlfriend, when the malignant and inoperable tumor in his brain finally takes his life in a few weeks; Keith and Danny continue to clash; Aaron runs into an old friend as he stumbles home after a night of drinking with his college roommate; Gina has a miscarriage, but a grieving Keith wonders if it wasn't deliberate; Karen suspects that Jack's gambling again, an accusation which he denies; Maricela puts the moves on Aaron; Karen is wary when Jack finally comes to her for help.

Kate flies to Washington with Tommy to speak to Congress about health care. Back in Chicago, her friend Marina makes a decision about adoption. McNeil's patint Harriett Owens is hospitalized again.

Aaron and Phillip announce that they are buying the hospital from Wilmette, although their plans for keping the solvent do not please any of their colleagues. An HMO lawyer obsessed with ""patient responsibilty"" holds the reins on some lucrative coronary-bypass business. A patient with private insurance receives test after test for all of his petty complaints.

Kate lobbies for another heart for a prominent author whose first transplanted organ is failing and who also has a continuing heroin addiction. McNeil's gambling problem grows worse. Danny Nyland becomes a patient when he runs into a telephone pole with his car.

McNeil doesn't cope well with the demands for attention from Karen, his ""roomate"" and a thereapy patient claiming that McNeil's his father. Billy lears that Aaron kissed Diane, and handles it very badly. A depressed Nyland gets one more unwelcome surprise. Phillip receives an offer from Emma.

Dr. Kronk must decide whether or not to grant the request of a convicted child molester who wants to be castrated. Dr. Shutt struggles to regain his health after his aneurism. McNeil refuses an ""easy cure"" to a heroin addict, and Dr. Grad treats an HIV positive 14-year-old.

Austin operates on a pregnant patient with a damaged heart and learns that she had taken the controversial diet pill Phen-phen. An accident reunites Watters and an old flame, the woman he had an affair with. Shutt has his first breakthrough. McNeil and Catera grow closer.

A famous artist has an inoperable brain tumor. She convinces Dr. Shutt to run away to California with her.