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.

Dennis and Jack clash over the best mode of treating the arthritic knee of a world class cyclist; Aaron makes a new friend when he takes on a new research assistant; Kate and Danny have their suspensions reviewed by the board; Phillip plunges back into patient care by performing an experimental procedure on a woman who exhibits unusual complications from a liver tumor; Caroline discovers that orthopedics are not for her; Dennis faces an emotional struggle in the aftermath of his shooting.

Kate returns to duty and finds that her reinstatement comes with a cut in title, salary, staff, and office; Jack replaces the hip of an older man who has opinions on everything, including how Jack should live his life; Aaron has mixed emotions when Grace comes up with a much-needed improvement for a surgical shunt he's been developing; Kate is humbled when a young couple whose daughter needs a heart transplant chooses another doctor after they discover her change in status; Tommy thinks it would be a good idea for the hospital to advertise, and hires a publicist who manages to get under everyone's skin as she creates a commercial that ends up looking strangely familiar.

Austin sprays a subpoena server with mace, inspiring his fellow servers to wage war on the hospital. Hancock tries to counsel a woman in her late forties whose health is severely threatened by her pregnancy but who refuses to let the baby be delivered early. Kronk finally returns to Chicago, dressed in Masai garb, and tries to reconnect with Diane.

Aaron faces a huge moral dilemma when he's asked to operate on a death-row inmate scheduled to be executed in two weeks. McNeil treats a feisty old lady whose daughter is an old flame os his. Dr. Watters entertains an amnesiac, believing that he's a distinguished visiting doctor.

Austin's cystic-fibrosis patient is just one of four patients needing transplants who have to wait in fear and hope when a potential donor appears but is prematurely pronounces dead and entered into the donor system by the inexperienced Eggert.

Kronk puts himself and Grad into a difficult position when he treats an old hockey pal who turns up after just being released from jail with a bullet in him. Wilkes and his wife face some basic decisions about their lives when they must decide what sort of neighborhood to move to.

Austin and Underhill both have to face the consequences when they tell the truth. McNeil contemplates surgery to prolong a jockey's career. Kronk lies to a teenage smoker with a cough.

Diane is faced with a dilemna when she has an opportunity to examine a 500-year-old Incan mummy temporarily in town for an exhibition. An accident victim loses his memories but gains a much nicer personality, presenting Shutt and McNeil with a dilemmna.

Wilkes saves a motorist who was attempting suicide. Austin falls for a politician.

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.

White supremacists on the run following a failed assassanation attempt against the President hole up in a grocery store with an injured member and demand a doctor from Chicago Hope to treat him.

Aaron's practical joker college roommate arrives for a visit and announces that he wants Aaron to marry his widow, Aaron's former girlfriend, when the malignant and inoperable tumor in his brain finally takes his life in a few weeks; Keith and Danny continue to clash; Aaron runs into an old friend as he stumbles home after a night of drinking with his college roommate; Gina has a miscarriage, but a grieving Keith wonders if it wasn't deliberate; Karen suspects that Jack's gambling again, an accusation which he denies; Maricela puts the moves on Aaron; Karen is wary when Jack finally comes to her for help.

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.

Kate flies to Washington with Tommy to speak to Congress about health care. Back in Chicago, her friend Marina makes a decision about adoption. McNeil's patint Harriett Owens is hospitalized again.

Aaron and Phillip announce that they are buying the hospital from Wilmette, although their plans for keping the solvent do not please any of their colleagues. An HMO lawyer obsessed with ""patient responsibilty"" holds the reins on some lucrative coronary-bypass business. A patient with private insurance receives test after test for all of his petty complaints.

Aaron discovers that his late father wasn't his biological parent when he meets the eccentric sculptor who is; Phillip learns something about his estranged son when an emergency arises; Kate treats an 11 year-old genius who hungers for contact with his overwhelmed father.

Kate lobbies for another heart for a prominent author whose first transplanted organ is failing and who also has a continuing heroin addiction. McNeil's gambling problem grows worse. Danny Nyland becomes a patient when he runs into a telephone pole with his car.

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.

Word of Billy's and Diane's engagement receives a mixed reception at the hospital; Jack returns from vacation with a windfall and a feverish belief he's on a winning streak; Kate alienates some colleagues when a reporter follows her around the hospital; Jack takes on the delicate job of operating on an infant with an exposed spinal cord.

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.

After a gang member dies in the ER, the boy's mother claims that one of the doctors suggested they ""Let him die"" so a prosecutor calls in Wilkes, Nyland, McNeil and Watters for widely varying statements about what actually happened during the crucial time period.

McNeil doesn't cope well with the demands for attention from Karen, his ""roomate"" and a thereapy patient claiming that McNeil's his father. Billy lears that Aaron kissed Diane, and handles it very badly. A depressed Nyland gets one more unwelcome surprise. Phillip receives an offer from Emma.

Jeffrey Geiger drops by Chicago Hope to announce that he has bought a controlling interest in the hospital, and to perform a deicate heart operation on one of Kate's patients. Kronk is forced to take over caring for his father, who's afflicted with Alzheimers. Aaron and Jack ponder the meaning of religion and God when several people claim to be seeing an image of the Virgin Mary in the hospital lobby. Wilkes takes action concerning his future.

Gang warfare breaks out in the E.R.; Kate refuses to perform a heart transplant; Billy and Diane get back together.

A woman may be making her daughter sick purposely. Kronk wants a child. Shutt's patient dies, and McNeil joins gamblers anonymous.

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

Dr. Kronk must decide whether or not to grant the request of a convicted child molester who wants to be castrated. Dr. Shutt struggles to regain his health after his aneurism. McNeil refuses an ""easy cure"" to a heroin addict, and Dr. Grad treats an HIV positive 14-year-old.

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.

Austin and NcNeil fly to London for a conference and are forced to perform lifesaving surgery with only an airline medical kit. Shutt begins his psychiatric residency.

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.

Shutt has his first group counseling session with a family, and tries to help a young man whose brother commited suicide. Wilkes father comes back into his life. Hancock and McNeil try to treat a boy whom he suspects is abused, even though the child and his father deny the abuse.

After a little too much holiday cheer Wilkes is charged with a DUI and must serve a community service in Dr. Hancock's clinic. Watters discovers that his accountant has left the country with Watters money. Shutt turns over a patient to Catera, and the two clash over whether she should perform a dangerous surgery on the patient. Dr. McNeil is elected to play Santa and is a huge hit in the childrens ward. Grad receives her Christmas present a little early.

Austin operates on a pregnant patient with a damaged heart and learns that she had taken the controversial diet pill Phen-phen. An accident reunites Watters and an old flame, the woman he had an affair with. Shutt has his first breakthrough. McNeil and Catera grow closer.

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

Watters is confined to a wheelchair after a basketball injury and witnesses a murder. Austin receives a bird from Danny, the electrician she's been dating, which causes havoc in the hospital. Diane believes she has found her birthmother.

Catera must operate on a 5-year-old who is suddenly stricken with seizures. An HIV-postive friend of Dr. Grad's talks to Diane about getting pregnant (she wants advice) and Diane (who discovered a lump in her breast) is afraid that neither of them will see their children grow up. A mother and daughter come into the ER handcuffed together.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Diane goes into labor unexpectedly and when no one can find Billy she reluctantly asks Kate to be her coach. Wilkes must get a family to safety from an abusive husband/father. McNeil and Catera take dance lessons (with special guest star Kenny Ortega, who choreographed ""Brain Salad Surgery."" Billy arrives at the hospital and discovers that Diane is having a c-section after her and the baby have gone into distress during the labor.

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 famous artist has an inoperable brain tumor. She convinces Dr. Shutt to run away to California with her.

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

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

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.

Hancock accuses Watters and Austin of racism when they refuse to operate on a black patient. One of Shutt's patients commits suicide when the medicine needed isn't covered by insurance.

Grad accuses a mother are starving her infant to death. Shutt and Catera disagree over a neurological patient. Austin announces her plans with NASA, and Watters taked away her status as Chief of Surgery. Yeats uses his ""sixth sense"" to diagnose a patient.

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.

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.

Gordan teaches Kate how to fly. Hancock accuses a police officer of shooting a homeless African-American.

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

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.

Wilkes must face the parents of a child brought into the ER when it becomes clear that Raymond was responsible for the child's injury. NASA starts interview Kate's colleagues. One of Aaron's patients is attracted to him.

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.

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.

During surgery to resolve an HIV-positive woman's post-partum complications, Diane accidentally cuts herself and is exposed to the virus; problems arise between Jack and Lisa when he discovers that she's been seeing Robert; a homeless man takes shelter in the hospital's main entrance; an unidentified man is hit by a train after trying to save a child; Jack takes up golf in the hospital.

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.

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.

Billy ponders euthanasia when Gordy is diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis; Lisa tries to help a woman with metastatic breast cancer get into an experimental group even though the woman doesn't fit the study parameters; Aaron's patient confesses to murder.

Kate confronts a world renowned surgeon who's harassed her in the past; Diane's patient has a flesh-eating bacterial infection.

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

A mother gives birth to twins, one black and one white. Kate is threatened with a lawsuit after making a rude comment.

Dr. Hancock's patient, who was using fertility drugs, gives birth to 8 babies.

Kate meets up with an old boyfriend, who turns out to be an ex-husband. Lisa tried to prolong the like of a pregnant woman with brain cancer. Cacaci forces Aaron to investigate his charge that Phillip had an affair with a patient.

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.

Aaron consults Dr. Gina Simon, a pediatric neurosurgeon after being presented with a 9-week old baby suffering from seizures. Jeffrey Geiger returns to the hospital and promptly fires half the staff, whom then sue to get their jobs back.

A priest is genitally mutilated during a mugging; a patient dies after a routine liposuction; Jeffrey refuses to perform surgery on a child.

A heart becomes available for transplant, but there are two patients waiting and Drs. Geiger and Watters must choose which patient will receive the heart. Jeffrey tries to place Alicia into an exclusive kindergarten. Aaron tries to hold a welcoming party for the new doctors.

A doctor with Tourette's Syndrome is brought to Chicago Hope to operate on an infant with a severe heart defect. A patient comes into the ER with, what he claims to be, Albert Einstein's brain and gives it to Dr. Wilkes. A woman is using plastic surgery to make herself look like a Barbie Doll.

Dr. McNeil goes to magnificent lengths to save the arm of a young baseball star. A little girl is brought into the ER after being hit by a car.

The doctors fight to save Cacaci's life after he jumps from a six story building in a suicide attempt, although Cacaci's fiancee says that someone pushed him off the building.

A widow wants to be impregnated with the sperm of her former husband. Rats take over the hospital.

The hospital is quarantined after a deadly virus is discovered; a child is missing in the hospital.

Dr. Alberghetti performs a surgery with another surgeon, who is in Sri Lanka.

On the way to a football game, Aaron and Jack get sidetracked... after they find themselves in a hostage situation with 3 wounded patients, a loose gunman, and the police about ready to enter the building.

Dr. Hanlon must fight against her department heads when they decide they no longer want her to perform pro-bono operations. Dr. Alberghetti tries to help a young man with a staph infection.

Gina operates on a surgeon who's been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.

A hepatitis scare forces Dr. Geiger to call for outside help; Dr. Simon's misdiagnosis causes her to doubt herself.

A teenager is forced to live his life as a girl after the slip of a knife, and McNeil goes to court to try to help.

A father is told he can only donate his liver to one of his children, after both go into liver failure. Rose Webber comes back to Chicago Hope and finds that Aaron has started a new relationship -- with Gina.

Keith discovers a heart murmer while giving Alicia a physical. Jeremy performs an appendectomy on Siamese twins.

A mentally challenged couple enters the hospital. The husband needs open heart surgery. The wife discovers that she can't become pregnant after she was sterilized without her consent.

Shutt and Simon invent a procedure and use it to save the life of a girl. McNeil treat a wrestler who's been using steroids.

McNeil's friend is shot. Pancreatic cancer effects one of the conjoined twins that have entered the hospital.

The hospital is purchased by an HMO, and immediately suffers budget cuts. During an operation that Miller is filming for a documentary, the heart stops beating on both the patient and her unborn child.

McNeil goes against procedure and red tape and performs a hip replacement surgery. Shutt and Simon transplant a computer into a patients brain. Alberghetti tries to ignore her feelings for Miller.

Shutt's patient wakes up after being in a coma after 15 years. A man is denied health coverage, after saving Miller's life.

Rumors fly that the hospital is about to be sold again; a man seriously injured in an accident wants to be the guinea pig for the computer program he's invented that can help him move again.