A college grid star, potential Heisman trophy recipient and big pro football draft choice, is plagued by a mysterious ailment, but refuses treatment in fear of jeopardizing his career.
Gannon comes to the aid of a student nurse who is efficient but resented by some for taking her own initiative too often. When a bus crash brings in a couple dozen patients, it puts her even more to the test.
Two interns (Patricia Quinn and Christopher Stone) are both being considered for a much-prized residency. And one of them is not above manipulation and sabotage to get it.
Dr. Paul Lochner (James Daly) must tell his daughter Jennifer (Tyne Daly) that she has a serious arterial condition which may require surgery and possibly delay her upcoming wedding.
A young minister needs to undergo heart surgery as soon as possible, but he wants to put it off because he is more concerned with keeping one of the parolees he is working with out of trouble.
Nurse Marge Bowen (Mercedes McCambridge) successfully convinces a young singer (Cliff Potts) to have surgery that could affect his voice. But she steals pain pills rather than face her own health problems.
Former football legend Ollie Wayne checks into the hospital and told that his legs need vascular surgery. If postponed, it could lead to amputation. But he keeps stalling surgery.
A determined researcher is overly eager to test a promising new drug on a 19-year-old patient with Hodgkin's Disease, but Gannon is reluctant because of a lack of information about the possible side effects.
Dr. Martin Lambert is so proud of his eldest son Jerry, a diving champion aiming for the Olympics, that he refuses to believe the boy may have a muscular disorder. And because of his obsession with Jerry's future, he has neglected his younger son.
A young, ambitious black resident thinks that Gannon is too reluctant to allow him to perform surgery, and that his assignment to a low income elderly white Southern patient is somehow meant as an insult.
After going through four spontaneous abortions in two years, a young woman wants to be sterilized, but her husband is ambiguous and Gannon feels she is acting too hastily in making her decision.