Letty and Matt work together on a patient, Dean Carvell, who suffers severe heart problems due to a previous car accident. Dean's lover and son clash over his treatment, which doesn't seem successful. Finally, Dean must choose whether or not to continue being resuscitated. Meanwhile, Harriet unites a wealthy, infertile 42-year-old woman who desperately wants a child with a troubled, pregnant teenager, Ellen O'Neal, who wants to give up her baby for adoption. But problems with Ellen's father and teenage boyfriend could jeopardize the transaction. After suspecting parental abuse when she sees a boy's bruises, Jules later questions her decision to call Children's Protective Services. And each of the Presidio Med doctors passes an obnoxious chronic patient, Francis Weinod, on to the next unwitting physician.
Dr. Lanning and Dr. Keating team up to save a newborn baby in distress. Meanwhile, Dr. Keating must grapple with a medical scare that could affect her own ability to have children. Dr. Brennan returns from her yearly foreign medical mission, known as ""Doctors Without Borders,"" where she has been having an affair with a Greek physician. Upon her return, she must help a man deal with the impending death of his father, who has cancer. Dr. Slingerland enlists Dr. Jordan to help him convince a zealous high school football coach of his urgent need for heart surgery. At the same time, Dr. Colette brazenly begins her new job by bullying an HMO to approve surgery for an elderly woman.