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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Ross and Greene travel to a near-deserted stretch of California to investigate circumstances surrounding a death in Doug's family.

Mark treats an old lady who has been brutally raped. Carter's grandmother visits Carol's clinic. After he's touched by Benton, a blind man can see again!

Another elderly rape victim is brought in. So is the rapist.

Carter finally works up enough nerve to ask Del Amico out. Jeanie tries to help Scotty decide whether to undergo an experimental treatment and Benton takes unexpected action during an operation with Morgenstern.

Ross treats a 6-month-old recovering from methadone withdrawal. A televangelist and his wife, who's suffering from an infection, plan a broadcast from the ER. Del Amico's old boyfriend arrives, and Jeanie fears her health is rapidly declining.

Third-year med student Lucy Knight reports to the ER for the first day of her rotation. Greene takes a teacherly interest in her, helping her get acquainted, but she gets off to a bad start with the irritable Carter when she speaks insensitively, and without Carter present, with a patient's wife about her husband's very serious condition. The rest of the day finds her comforting a woman who has suffered a miscarriage, getting locked out on the roof, having Carol bail her out on a simple procedure, and trying to figure out Kerry Weaver's "Tour on Tape."

Dr. Corday begins her first day as an intern, first by being assigned to Dale Edson, then being treated as Romano's lapdog. Kerry is interviewed for ER chief. Doug and Carol ponder parenthood when Carol realizes she may be pregnant. Carol and Lynette try to keep a wounded gang-banger from leaving and seeking retaliation. Lucy faces the wrath of Carter when he discovers that she doesn't know how to start an IV. Jeanie asks Doug if she can be a full-time PA for the pediatric ER.

Dr. Corday commits a deadly error after being on-call for nearly 36 hours straight. Peter visits Dr. Kotlowitz and receives encouragement regarding a cochlear implant for Reese. Dr. Amanda Lee, a prospective new ER chief, visits. In the wake of a failed pregnancy attempt, Carol lashes out at a mother using abortion as a means of selective birth control. Carter and Lucy feud when Carter accidentally uses her palm computer and finds out what she thinks of him. Mark panics during a paramedic initation.

Benton's attempts to get away to Carla and Reese on Christmas Eve are continually thwarted by Romano, culminating in Benton forcing the drunken Romano away from a patient. Carter believes he's found a Christmas miracle when a teenage girl with a rare blood type needs an organ donation at the same time a brain-dead patient with the same blood type is in the hospital. After witnessing Dr. Lee rifling through Greene's locker, Jerry becomes convinced that she's stalking Mark.

Ricky Abbott returns to the ER. Doug forges papers to allow Joi to treat Ricky at home. Corday decides to back out of the Romano sexual harassment investigation after he threatens to expose her relationship with Benton. Romano is later named Acting Chief of the ER. Dr. Greene treats a Nigerian janitor for back pain and impotency. Carol and the nurses watch a bunch of dogs when their owner is hospitalized. Carter diagnoses a med student with Hodgkin's disease. Kerry initiates a search for her biological parents.

Peter accepts Romano's suggestion and takes a two-week job in Minnesota to earn some extra money. Unfortunately, before he gets a chance to leave, he's transferred to backwoods Mississippi, where the hospital is only a two-room building. Peter battles local racism, delivers a difficult infant while battling the grandfather's concerns that the child might be black, and uses unorthodox methods to save two shrimp boat workers. Meanwhile, back in Chicago, Jeanie's condition worsens.

Romano forces Benton to choose between the trauma and cardiothoracic fellowships. Carol worries that she may have lost her child. Corday and Greene bond on the way to a medical conference. Carter mentors an aspiring teenager. Lucy, on a psychiatry rotation, treats an overmedicated foster child. Jeanie finds her faith while treating a reverend.

Carol's pregnancy becomes public knowledge as she learns that she's having twins. Lucy has problems trying to go off Ritalin. Peter learns Carla plans to move to Germany. Kerry finds an abandoned youngster and brings him to the ER. Mark and Elizabeth discuss their relationship. Jeanie and Reggie draw closer again.

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.

Hathaway befriends an out-of-work waitress, Meg. Seven-months pregnant, Meg cannot afford prenatal care. Hathaway invites her to the hospital, performs free tests and helps her interview for a job in the cafeteria.

Weaver tries to save the life of a rape victim while Corday struggles with feelings of disdain as she is forced to save the rapist. Cleo treats a teenage alcoholic boy whose alcoholic mother refuses to recognize her problem or his.

In order to get her paitient to tell her the location of a missing body, Corday agrees to grant him a fatal wish. Kovac befriends two brothers. He tells Weaver that his wife and children died in the Bosnian war. Former medical student Deb Chen returns to County General as a resident, using her Chinese name, Jing-Mei Chen.

Dr. Greene and Corday bond with their parents, Lucy cares for a patient with a psychotic break, and Valentine's Day celebrations in the ER end tragically for one of the students.

Even though he suffers from intense pain due to his stabbing injuries, Carter returns to work and prescribes a controversial procedure for a suicidal patient. Greene tries to convince his father to undergo cancer treatment.

Carter seeks psychiatric help because he can't sleep. He then visits the wife of his attacker. Weaver returns to work after her suspension. Hathaway and Kovac share a kiss.

As the result of a school shooting, Kovac and Benton care for the gunman and his victims. Abby discovers that Carter has been illegally injecting pain relievers. Greene and Weaver confront Carter about his problem, and Weaver orders him to enter a drug rehabilitation center or leave the hospital permanently.