Watters steps in and asks Geiger to take on Austin's transplant patient as she struggles with her ex husband for custody of their daughter. Sutton brings a brain-dead woman into the hospital to deliver her baby.

Kate returns to Chicago to face possible arrest and her ex-husband, as well as suspension at work. Aaron ponders Philip's bitterness over Aaron's apparent support of Tommy Wilmette. Dennis struggles to regain his health. Dr. Nyland returns to find a new doctor in charge of the trauma service. Kronk and Grad continue to quarrel as he prepares to leave Africa.

Kate cares for her dying father and gets some words of wisdom from Tommy when he brings Sara for a visit; Philip recruits Dr. Jack McNeil to head up orthopedics; Diane returns, only to find that Billy has remained in Africa and that her lab has turned into a storage room; Keith places himself in legal jeopardy when he decides to help an injured drug courier evade arrest; Aaron persuades Tommy to give the hospital six months to turn itself around with Philip at the helm.

Aaron and Jack join forces in operating on a man who sustained multiple fractures in a parachute jumping accident; Diane rejoins the staff as a teaching attending in internal medicine, and quickly draws a demanding and manipulative patient who's making the staff miserable; Kate's grief over her father's death is compounded when she's carjacked on her way home from his funeral and his ashes are not recovered with the car; Diane unsuccessfully seeks some moral support from Dennis and Philip; after Tommy tells her some hard truths about creating her own misery, Kate decides to take responsibility for the choices she's made, and starts by telling Peggy Harrod the truth about her daughter's death; Jack takes one on the chin when he gives the parachutist's would-be bride some bad news; Kate returns home to find the carjacker has returned her father's ashes while burglarizing her home; Philip has it out with Aaron and reaffirms his intention to keep Tommy from closing the hospital.

A hit-and-run victim escapes serious injury but her infant twins face a desperate crisis. Hancock faces testifying in court against his brother-in-law. Patient Linda Fortin's heart continues to grow weaker as her pregnancy progresses, endangering herself and her baby.

An old friend of Austin's asks for help in getting pregnant. A cancer patient needs marijuana for her well being. Shutt's friend returns from Italy without his wife.

Grad tries to persuade a hesitant Kronk to perform a double mastectomy on a healthy woman does not have cancer but who does have the gene for breast cancer and a family history of the illness. Austin struggles to get a reluctant Sara into an exclusive girls school. Nyland returns to work following his accident and throws himself into trying to identify a severely beaten and comatose young woman.

Kate finds herself in a no-win situation when a child is injured during one of Sara's softball games. Phillip's Colonel from Vietnam is admitted with rheumatoid arthritis but refuses treatment. Nyland is suspended again. Shutt get a TV gig.

The hospital loses electricity in the dead of winter. Austin must do emergency surgery on a close friend. Pregnant, Grad feels unattractive.

Catera and McNeil cross roads when her facination with his brother becomes personal. Billy begins to feel ""in over his head"" with the impending birth of his child, so at a desperate attempt at freedom he becomes involved in a bar fight. Austin introduces Danny to her daughter. Watters moonlights as a stand-up comic.

After the mysterious death of a seemingly healthy 15 year-old Dr. Wilkes decides to investigate. A lesbian wants her lover to die with dignity and fights her family to get her wishes.

Dr. Watters' son is found dead in his apartment and Phillip must except the fact that he committed suicide. Dr. Austin brings her daughter to the hospital and she becomes fascinated with the blood and guts aspects of her mother's work. Dr. Catera becomes uncomfortable with Dr. McNeil's romantic pursuits, until she watches one of her patients (who is in much the same situation.)

A cardiologist in NASA's Doctors in space program has a heart attack and Kate takes the doctors place in the program. Dr. Shutt has a patient who needs to tell his father, an Orthodox Rabbi, that he is gay.

Billy's mother shows up at the hospital and announces she is about to give birth. The star of the road company version on ""Jesus Christ Superstar"" comes to the hospital when the star is ill. Yeats former teacher comes to the hospital with chest pains.

Kate discovers that she has developed an ovarian cyst which could destroy her plans with NASA. After Kate hears this news she agrees to go to a retreat... that Yeats is leading.

McNeil performs a hand transplant on the patient, and uses the patient's dead mother's hand. Kate is accepted by NASA. An old childhood friends visits Watters and asks for one of his kidneys.

The E.R. is flooded with teenagers poisoned by an unknown rave drug; Kate and Sara are hit by a drunk driver; Phillip's fate is decided.