Tom Desmond is at his wits' end: he has a sick wife, a 3-month-old baby, no source of income and a towering pride that rejects all help.

An insight into Lochner's personal life as Ruth, his ex-wife, and Bobbie, his daughter turn up at the hospital. Now widowed, Ruth Marlowe would like to pick up the pieces of a relationship shattered by an annulment many years before. However, here are obstacles: Ruth's heart condition-and her disapproving daughter.

A once-brilliant surgeon has become very withdrawn. The crack surgeon who retires to do research and will not come out, shares the spotlight with Doc Gannon. The embittered medic is asked to perform a new operation on his former wife who will not allow a substitute.