St. Elsewhere

A gregarious mental patient with amnesia is mistaken for the prominent Chairman of the Residency Review Board. The new head of the Obstetrics-Gynecology Department, Dr. Turner, tries to help a childless young couple who have fertility problems. A bitter Chandler, still grieving over a brother killed in Vietnam, reacts violently to Morrison’s post-Vietnam peace offensive.

A Stuffy Dr. Craig agrees to meet his newly married son’s pregnant wife for the first time, and an energized Westphall returns from Ethiopia eager to make controversial changes in the hospital. His proposed changes irritate some of his colleagues, including the residents who are not thrilled with his plan to force them to contribute time to charity.

Caldwell moves into his new “haunted” summer house on Cape Cod where he encounters an attractive but abusive female neighbor by day and later hears things that fo bump in the night - at least until an uninvited Fiscus arrives on the scene. Also, pudgy Axelrod, feeling self-conscious in horizontal stripes, decides to shed some weight.

Dr. Craig and his wife drift apart while awaiting a relative’s emotional funeral. A helpless Rosenthal tries to convince her superiors that a departing patient intends to fulfill his death wish.

Casanova Caldwell picks up another girl, and more trouble than he knows; Westphall falls ill from a latent African illness; Rosenthal bails out of the emergency room to reclaim her old job (without the head nurse title); and turner recommends in-vitro fertilization to a desperate childless couple.

A famous astronaut, who blacks out and experiences delusions, is placed under the care of a hero-worshipping Morrison. A developmentally disabled young patient has her first sexual experience in the hospital and a huffy Craig orders her to “cease and desist.”

Craig takes his comatose daughter-in-law back to her parents, determined to fulfill his promise to his wife to bring back their baby granddaughter. Morrison puts his shaky career on the line to protect an astronaut under his care.

An astronaut dangerously isolates himself from his wife, fellow pilots and doctors; Westphall’s attempts to heal an undernourished Central American refugee are for naught; and Ehrlich’s conscientiousness tickets him out of surgery for the dreaded obstetrics-gynecology department.

Westphall takes a chance when he hides his housekeeper, an illegal alien from El Salvador, to prevent her deportation to her own country where she would probably be put to death.

It’s lights out at the hospital during a city-wide power blackout that leaves everyone in the dark, including Westphall (who’s stuck in an elevator with an angry young man) and Fiscus who finds love among the ruins with his girlfriend.

When a Rent-A-Santa keels over with a kid on his knee during a party, Auschlander tries to soothe the children’s fears. Meanwhile, a lonely Ehrlich tries to persuade a patient to spend Christmas with him at St Eligius, and Westphall burrows in for the night with his daughter and her bored boyfriend. And Craig? He’s muttering to himself while roaming the streets in a snowstorm.

A mad bomber blows up an abortion clinic where Chandler is working and his next target is St. Eligius Hospital.

Rosenthal is ordered to pay $15,000 in damages to a fellow nurse for assault; Ehrlich casually suggests adoption to a troubled couple who have tried to have a natural child of their own.

When a crusty matriarch from a prominent New England political family checks into St. Eligius, Auschlander nurses an old grudge.

A famous political family recovers after a sudden shooting and Mrs. Endicott, matron of the family, decides to check out of the hospital against Craig’s advice. A chastened Caldwell tries to recount his past loves, including administrator Joan Halloran.

Fiscus and Clancy ponder the risks of their steamy lovemaking; Ehrlich’s ‘voluntary’ community service takes him for a walk on the wild side as he counsels a teenaged dwarf on his growth options; and a reeling Caldwell considers a radical solution to his many problems.

The interwoven decades present the men and women of St. Eligius the way they were, starting with Father McCabe, the driving force behind the construction and operation of the hospital for twenty years. In 1965, a mini-skirted Rosenthal arrives from England, and helps a patient who will need more treatment twenty years later. And 1975 finds Westphall happily married and with his young children.

In 1945, a red-haired Auschlander is hired by Father McCabe as head administrator - but reconsiders after facing anti-Semitism - and he finds the future Mrs. Auschlander; later the irreverent McCabe is forced out of the hospital he founded; and the present finds Morrison awaiting news of his son, while sifting through old files for a buried case history of an ailing patient.

Drs. Axelrod and Fiscus are California dreamin’ when they represent the hospital at a medical convention in the Golden State, but spend their time roller skating and catching rays at the beach.

A fed-up Ellen kicks Mark out, forcing him to spend the night at the hospital where a grateful Ehrlich helps him with an emergency Cesarean operation, and Westphall has a revelation for an attractive medical student whom he invites to dinner.

Morrison agrees to hazardous volunteer duty to tend prisoners in a maximum security facility and is humiliated when a riot breaks out. Meanwhile, back at St. Eligius, Ehrlich looks forward to his last pelvic exam on his OB-Gyn tour, only to find that the patient is Ellen Craig and he must explain his findings to her himself.

Dr. Auschlander investigates a blighted tenement turned over to St. Eligius; he discovers it’s a ‘rock house’ (an illegal cocaine store) and is held at gunpoint just before a police battering ram crashes through the building.

Nurse Rosenthal’s first husband, Edgar Eisenburg, returns to rekindle the flame; Dr. Novino is confused when several male doctors ask her out; and Luther is despondent with his lot in life cleaning up other people’s messes.

Westphall and Novino attend the annual Doctor of the Year Award banquet and wind up greeting the dawn together, while Craig stays home expecting defeat and angrily smashes his prized surgeon’s hand.