Dr. Shutt views his life as a musical after he collapses from an aneurism.

Dr. McNeil attends a medical convention in Las Vegas, believing he can control his gambling addiction. After the son of a close friend dies, McNeil begins gambling again. Watters, Shutt, and Wilkes are forced to share a room in the hotel, when it is overbooked for the convention.

As Dr. Wilkes takes his son to school gunfire errupts. The victims are brought to Chicago Hope and Wilkes finds himself having to deal with his sons post-tramatic distress. Kronk also finds himself viewing the situation in a new light, due to the recent arrival of his daughter. The situation also brings back memories of his son to Dr. Watters. Catera had to operate on the shooter, and feels conflicting emotions. Dr. McNeil pops the question to Dr. Catera. Austin is still turmoiled over the incident at the cabin.

A family eats poisonous mushrooms and the mother and two sons must receive a liver transplant. A donor is found for the mother and the father is a match for the two sons. The father decides to have a live donor transplant, but is told by Kronk that only one of his children can receive the organ. Austin and Cacaci have to attend a sensitivity seminar, which only makes Austin worse. With Shutt's help a patient remembers a sexual abuse that happened during childhood, but the parent vehemently deny it ever happening. Drs. Grad and Kronk get kicked out of lamaze class.

Camille has an innocent and unavoidable mishap in the operating room during a heart transplant on the rabbi who performed her wedding ceremony to Aaron, and blames herself when the rabbi dies later, even though her mishap had nothing to do with his death; an inexperienced new nurse stands up to Arthur; wracked with guilt, Camille reveals the operating room mishap to the rabbi's widow, and only Alan's ingenuity in demanding an autopsy keeps the hospital from a major lawsuit; Aaron and Camille have it out over his lack of emotional support after the rabbi's death, and each of them admit to the hurt caused by their divorce.

The hospital prepares for the Doctor of the Year party, and several old friends drop by. Watters goes into a virus-induced coma and gets some words of wisdom from Alan Birch. Camille Shutt returns for the party and Aaron discovers he still has feeling for her. Dr. Nyland returns to the hospital and reveals that he has really changed his life. Geiger also visits the hospital.

A troubled Dr. Geiger seeks a blessing from his institutionalized ex-wife so he can continue his relationship with Dr. Infante. A dying AIDS patient hopes Hancock can arrange a surgical procedure that would allow him to see one more sunrise.

A poisonous gas is released in a bank and the doctors try to contain the gas, that is threatening many lives including Dr. Hancock.

Diane tries to help grieving parents when their three year old child dies; Aaron is institutionalized after an experiment backfires.

An explosion sends a dry cleaner to the ER. Dr. Kadalski is pressured to change his unorthodox methods when he treats a man who compulsively pulls out his hair. A fearful Birch lets off steam at Jeffrey as baby Alicia's condition worsens.

Kate discovers that a patient is using Viagra to cheat on his wife; Jack gives a blood transfusion even though it's against the patient's Jehovah's Witness religion; a musician fears his creativity may be stifled by the medicine Aaron prescribes for his bipolar disorder; Joe's son drives the staff crazy as he roams the hospital behaving exactly like his father.

A celebrity dies and news crews invade the hospital to cover the story.

A member of Jack's basketball team sustains a near-fatal injury during a game; Bobby disagrees about the need for his patient to have heart surgery.

Aaron struggles with the loss of a patient; Billy is attracted to Emily's babysitter; a couple asks Bobby and Dennis for help in creating a baby with a genius I.Q.; Joe tries to decide who should go into the hospital's fallout shelter in an emergency.

Jeffrey runs afoul of the trustees when a grieving husband has second thoughts after allowing him to test an artificial heart on the body of the man's newly deceased wife; Alan comes to the rescue when a patient's HMO refuses to cover Aaron's operating on her very complicated and potentially fatal brain tumor; Jeffrey visits his wife Laurie, a straitjacketed patient in a mental hospital who apologizes for drowning their son Joey; Arthur's refusal to remove his wagging finger from Jeffrey's face during an argument leaves him with a bitten digit, and enables Jeffrey to diagnose the curable medical condition that's causing Arthur's resting tremor.

Phillip's religious beliefs and Jeffrey's grief over the death of his son put them on opposite sides of whether to convince a young mother to remove her infant from life support so that her daughter's organs can be donated to save the life of another baby; Karen deflects a flirtation from Jeffrey, but romantic sparks fly between her and Aaron.

Aaron, the staff, and the patients are caught in the crossfire when Antoine Metcalf, a gangbanger and career criminal, follows his latest victim into the E.R. to finish off the job he started, and sprays a room with automatic gunfire before hospital security shoots him down; Karen joins the staff, and successfully teams with Paula to remove hematomas that are preventing Marcus Lavelle from walking, but the trauma of witnessing his mother's being injured in the E.R. shooting leaves the little boy afflicted with hysterical paralysis and still unable to move although the surgery has left him physically fine; reluctantly operating on the shooter, Aaron jokes about how easy and perhaps appropriate it might be to cause Metcalf's death through a surgical hiccup, a remark which comes back to haunt him later when Metcalf dies soon after surgery and his family sues Aaron and the hospital for failure to provide adequate care; Arthur engages in a little ex parte communication to put in a good word

Jeffrey strongly objects when his old nemesis is hired into the plastic surgery department, but they are able to set aside their differences to bring some peace to the mother of a young girl who dies during surgery; a nurse impedes Aaron's plan to allow Karen to die peacefully.

When the Board of Health closes the hospital doors after several patients die from a deadly staph infection, the staff scrambles to find the source of the infection; Jeffrey and Geri help each other work through feelings of grief, loss, and guilt.

Dr. Shutt may have brain damage after his aneurism, so a new neurosurgeon, Dr. Lisa Catera, is brought into the hospital. Dr. Austin gets trapped on an elevator with a sexy electrician.

Kate suspects that the parents of a boy who needs a liver transplant may have pressured his sister, who has cystic fibrosis, into being his donor; Diane learns that she's pregnant; Billy announces that he's going to South America; Aaron tries biofeedback.

Hancock and the police search trash bins for a newborn; male rape; Drs. Kronk and Grad wed at the airport. A basketball player has a heart defect.

McNeil offers his cabin to Drs. Austin, Catera, and Grad, whom each want to get away from the city for a while. While at the cabin they receive a visit from an unexpected and deadly visitor.

Dr. Kronk's mother visits. Aaron spends time with Samara in California. A woman offers Dr. Hancock money to sterilize some of his patients.

Jack returns after his brother's death; fearing the impact of HMOs on his practice, Joe begins to sell doorway products; Billy's friend comes to the hospital for a heart transplant, and ends up getting an experimental procedure after the hospital receives the wrong organ.