The ER treats victims of a gang shootout. Carter arrives late and unprepared for his new position. Mark learns all about being an attending, including senior staff's habit of bad-mouthing the residents, particularly Doug Ross. Mark hires a new chief resident, Kerry Weaver. New third year med students arrive to complete their ER rotation.

Kerry Weaver manages to offend just about everyone in her first day as chief resident. Carol goes on a ride-along with paramedics Shep and Raul, sharing a ferris wheel ride with Shep. Peter and Jeanie's secret relationship comes to a head. Susan is stuck caring for Little Susie while Chloe attends school. Dr. Ross has his hands full with a young pyromaniac. Carter shows interest in med student Harper Tracy.

Carter gets his first patient...and loses him. Susan's feud with Kerry Weaver intensifies when Weaver demands all of Susan's procedures be cleared with her. Chloe abandons Little Susie again for a lucrative career in the flea market business. Carol finishes her paramedic recertification by picking up a very overweight, lethargic man. Shep hits on Carol. Jeanie ends her relationship with Benton. Wendy conducts interviews with various ER staffers for an article on Dr. Greene. Dr. Ross cares for a four-year-old Asian boy with AIDS.

Weaver and Susan's feud escalates to the point where Mark needs to step in and fix it. Benton is involved in a parking lot altercation, resulting in a broken hand and Carter replacing him in surgery. Mark cares for an abandoned elderly woman. Susan tries to juggle her work and care for Little Susie. Shep risks his life to bring in a gunshot victim.

Dr. Ross treats the dying Chia-Chia. Susan tries to find a way to keep Little Susie, asking her parents for help. Benton treats an injured woman who refuses to press charges against her abusive policeman husband. Carol and Harper are tricked by a patient from the "turkey file." Lydia helps Loretta the prostitute outfit herself for a job interview. The staff celebrates Weaver's day off.

Speculation runs through the ER, on a very hectic day, about Randi's possible criminal history. Mark faces an ethical dilemma when he has to decide whether to report yet another of Doug Ross's indiscretions--Doug slept with med student Harper Tracy. Carter becomes upset when Harper confesses this to him. Carol meets with a mobile notary to finish the paperwork to purchase a house. Bernstein informs Doug that he need to look for other employment. Benton is visibly upset when Jeanie begins work in the ER as a physician's assistant.

In the middle of a torrential rainstorm, Dr. Ross stumbles across a child trapped in a drainage pipe rapidly filling with water. Doug does everything possible to save the boy, Ben Larkin. Harper develops a bond with a young girl with separated parents.

Carol and Jeanie try to find a home for a schizophrenic architect. Carter signs Benton up for an interview with Vucelich for a prestigious study. Carter and Harper try to find a place to make out. Jenn and Rachel are involved in a car accident; Mark is thrown for a loop when he learns that Jenn has been having an affair with a coworker. Doug dines with his mother. Susan receives $3000 in the mail from Chloe.

The ER staffers are in decidedly unfestive moods as Christmas arrives. Carol's spirits are lifted by a Santa-like patient. Mark is outraged when Jenn decides to stay in Milwaukee over Christmas. Benton and Carter score points with Vucelich when Carter convinces an older gentleman, Ruby, to include his wife in Vucelich's study. Mark gives a deposition in the O'Brien case. The death of a priest threatens to start a gang war. Weaver receives a surprise visit from an African friend. A Holocaust survivor, the victim of a carjacking, brings Chanukah to the ER.

Mark tries to find a way to tell Rachel about his impending divorce. Benton attends a banquet at Vucelich's home, with Jeanie as his date. Carter finally tells Mr. Rubadoux about his wife's terminal condition, making the man furious. Morganstern is admitted to the hospital after breaking a leg at a Scottish family reunion.

Mark is riddled with self doubt as the hospital prepares to settle the O'Brien suit. Kerry appoints herself as Susan's personal mentor. Carol mind a bucketful of expensive worms. Doug balks at counseling a teenage boy who thinks he might be gay. Benton uncovers some disturbing information concerning Vucelich's study. Carter steals a diagnosis from Harper.

Benton decides to blow the whistle on Vucelich's unethical study methods, causing Vucelich to drop him from the study. Susan treats a street couple, one of whom has passed HIV to the other. Doug receives a visit from his estranged father. Carter spreads rumors about an affair between Mark and Susan. Mark buys a motorcycle. Prostitute Loretta has cervical cancer.

The ER hosts roughly a dozen pregnant women when a sprinkler bursts in the maternity ward. Carter plays tour guide for the visiting surgical intern hopefuls before going through the interview himself. Benton tries to bring a hopeless patient back from the brink of death in a marathon surgery. Jerry tries to convince the others that basketball player Scottie Pippen visisted. Doug visits his father.

Shep and Raul respond to a massive fire without proper equipment, risking their lives to save addicts and their children. Shep will be okay, but Raul has third-degree burns covering his body; it's only a matter of time. The ER is flooded with burn victims. Chloe returns to Chicago. Doug is stood up by his father for a basketball game.

Susan institutes extra precautions in case Chloe tries to reclaim Little Susie. Mark changes his look, growing a goatee and wearing contact lenses. Carol and Jeanie square off over the care of a transient. Carter celebrates when he receives his residency match, putting his patient and his job at risk. Shep, still suffering from Raul's death, is surly with new parter Reilly. Benton and Ross have differences when Peter discloses a critical mistake made by Doug, raising animosity between the two.

Mark finds himself manning a very crowded ER on his scheduled night off, filling in while Doug is out with whiplash and Susan meets with her lawyer. He tries to juggle hunger pangs, 40+ patients in the waiting room and a never-ending stream of traumas.

Carter engages in competition with new surgical resident-in-training Dale Edson upon learning that residents will be evaluated and graded; only the top ones advancing to second year. It doesn't help that Dale once had a relationship with Harper. Mark flirts with infomercial director Iris. Peter faces the fallout from his altercation with Doug when surgeons begin dropping him from procedures. Shep begins exhibiting uncontrolled hostility, first to a patient being abusive with Carol, then a pedestrian. Susan and Chloe try to reach an agreement regarding Little Susie.

Susan throws herself into her work to escape her stressful personal life, earning recognition from Kerry and Mark, who begins preliminary discussions on next year's chief resident. Carter needs a pedes rotation, and fast, with Doug to graduate med school. Doug takes up with his father's girlfriend. Shep overreacts and attacks an Asian boy interfering at a scene. Mark and Jenn try to discuss their divorce amicably, with unforeseen results. Benton is named Resident of the Year. Harper leaves for an OB rotation at Parkland in Dallas.

Susan visits a psychiatrist to cope with the loss of Little Susie. Jeanie's estranged husband Al checks in the ER complaining of flu-like symptoms, which turn out to be caused by HIV. Shep expects Carol to back his version of events during an official investigation of his behavior. Loretta takes a turn for the worse. Doug discovers that his father has disappeared with a LOT of Karen's money.

Carol is pushed to the breaking point after another day when politics triumph over health care, and she quits. Dr. Greene "trades his soul" when he agrees to back Weaver for ER attending, in exchange for her support of Susan for chief resident. Jeanie takes an HIV test and informs Peter he should get himself tested as well. Carter invites Benton to his med school graduation, which he himself misses. Shep's refusal to see a psychiatrist risks his relationship with Carol.

It's the first day of Carter's internship. He has a 36 hour shift and overnight he has to cover the ER, the ICU as well as the surgical patients.

While the whole staff is worried the ER might close, Jeanie has her own problems in dealing with being HIV-positive.

Donald Anspaugh has a new method to increase the staff's efficiency, new intern Maggie Doyle joins the ER and Susan asks Mark to come along to Hawaii.

Doug's one-night-stand has a seizure and he brings her to the ER.

While Mark is anxious about Susan's return from her holiday, Doug and Carol ride along with the health mobile.

While on their helicopter flight rotation, Mark and Susan find an injured family of four who they bring to the ER.

Encouraged by Carol, Mark finally asks Susan out. Benton tries to save a boy, despite the fact Doug thinks he's brain dead.

It's Susan's last day. Carol stands up for her nurses when one of them is being rotated to another department.

Carol worries about her physics exam while Mark is heart-broken about Susan's departure and focuses solely on his job.

Mark and Kerry have to create a policy regarding HIV-positive employees, which leads to gossip amongst the nurses.

Carol has to fire two of the nurses. Meanwhile, Gant feels Benton is too hard on him.

Doug treats a dying 17-year old cystic fibrosis patient who doesn't want to be resuscitated. Carter gets to operate Benton.

Nurse Carol Hathaway is held hostage during a convenience store robbery, then befriends one of the gunmen.

Carol will hear whether her suspension is permanent or not. Mark and Doyle do what they can to get a patient with Down syndrome on a heart transplant list.

Benton goes into Carla's private hospital files when he fears that something may be wrong with their baby; Jeanie treats a suicidal woman who reveals a surprising secret; and Greene learns that Rachel has been lying about her health.

Benton tries to find out if everything's OK with Carla's baby. Carter tries to get a man operated, despite the fact Anspaugh thinks he will die no matter what.

Benton takes a day off to help Carla. Carter finds out Edson falsified a chart.

Jeanie asks Greg to help Al get into a special AIDS-program at the hospital. Olbes brings in her grandfather, who had a stroke.

It's Carol's birthday, Mark is returning to work after being assaulted and Carla goes into premature labor.

Anspaugh is furious when Carter tells him he wants to quit surgery. Charlie is brought in with an overdose. Mark keeps struggling with his beating.

While a film crew is filming in the ER, it's Elizabeth Corday's first day.

Carter is exited about getting his own med student and Mark and Carol interview candidates for the desk clerk position.

Cynthia Hooper starts as the new desk clerk. Benton and Carla disagree over whether or not their son should be circumcised. Al gets in an accident at work.

His ex-wife Jennifer tells Mark he can't see Rachel until he's got his act together. Reece gets to go home. Al has lost his job.

Carol would like to have a women's and children's health care clinic within the ER. Benton has trouble combining work and fatherhood.

Al wants to move to Atlanta where he got a job offer. Jeanie however isn't keen on moving. Carol talks to Carter's grandmother about the clinic.

Because of benzene that's been spread, the ER has to close. Weaver gets felled and Carter has to take the lead.

When Anspaugh decides to retire as chief of staff and return to surgery, he appoints Romano as his replacement. Greene expresses reservations about the decision, but Weaver does not support Greene. Romano makes Weaver the new chief of emergency medicine.