Chicago Hope: Season 3

Nyland returns from his vacation with Valerie to find he's been suspended and replaced as chief of trauma by Dr. Keith Wilkes. Kate comes back from New Zealand facing both kidnapping charges and a suspension. A new group of interns comes into the hospital, eager to change things. Uncertainty hangs in the air over the future of the hospital when Tommy Wilmette considers drastic cuts. Billy and Diane work in a Maasai village in Africa. Aaron and Phillip clash when Aaron becomes 'buddy buddy' with

Phillip travels to Wyoming to recruit Jack McNeil, an orthopedic surgeon. McNeil refuses, for reasons unknown. McNeil is haunted from memories of the Oklahoma City bombing. New trauma chief Keith Wilkes is in hot water after he removes narcotics from a patient's intestine and flushes them. Grad returns from Africa and is offered a general practitioner position. Dr. Austin cares for her dying father. Ron Silver continues to appear.

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

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

Billy returns from Africa, leaving the peaceful Maasai for America's turbulence. Billy is threatened by a 12-year-old after his drug-dealing brother, under Billy's care, dies. Austin faces the impact of her actions when she and her co-workers are sued in the Harrod death (ep #32). Aaron finds himself uneasy about an upcoming date with physical therapist Karen Wilder.

Nyland treats an amnesiac who wanders away and is mistaken by Phillip for an old medical student. Aaron operates on a death row inmate who begs Aaron to kill him on the table, dying before the state has a chance to execute him. McNeil suspects an old girlfriend of abusing her mother.

A potentially brain-dead donor comes into the ER. With doctors from all over Chicago waiting, the body is first declared brain-dead, then after a re-examination they find he's only in a coma. The doctors bicker over what to do.

Dr. Wilkes takes flak from Dennis for not giving back to his community. Billy has a tough decision to make when a childhood friend show up at his apartment in the early morning hours with a bullet in him. Diane believes Billy's friend may have been involved in a savage beating.

Kate is faced with a dilemma when an Asian patient is diagnosed with cancer, yet her family requests the patient not be informed to save face. First year resident Underhill has his own decision when he discovers distressing news about a patient's husband. Dr. McNeil treats a jockey suffering from back pain, which leads to a personal crisis when he's tempted to re-enter the world of gambling.

Jack, re-energized by his descent into gambling, performs a daring procedure, attaching a man's left hand onto his right arm. Aaron treats a man who, after surgery, completely forgets the last ten years of his life and speaks in loving terms about his now ex-wife. Aaron loses his cool when his car is stalked by an irate man who feels Aaron personally wronged him by inadvertently parking too close to his van. Diane examines a mummy.

Dr. Wilkes copes with personal and professional problems as he tries to reach a compromise with his wife regarding an unexpected pregnancy while trying to convince a suicidal patient he pulled out of the river that a crippling operation is his only chance for life. Aaron takes revenge against a deadbeat debtor by taking his money's worth from the patient's clothing store. Dr. Austin falls for a visiting dignitary.

The trial of Hancock's brother-in-law gets underway, with Dennis still unsure of how his sister will testify. Rumors about Phillip's personal life fly through the hospital after Maggie overhears an intimate conversation. Dr. Austin tries to save one of two children, both victims of a hit and run. Dr. McNeil decides to quit gambling. Aaron screws up his courage and decides to ask Maricela on a date.

Billy and Diane are caught in the middle of a hostage situation after two revolutionaries shoot up a political convention. Dr. Kronk risks his life to treat a wounded rebel, while the other criminals grow increasingly tense.

Aaron reunites with an old friend, David, who has only a few months left to live. His friend suggests Aaron marry his wife, who married David over Aaron, after David dies. Aaron gets drunk and runs into (imagines?) Jeffrey. Wilkes doubts his wife when she claims to have had a miscarriage. Wilkes and Nyland's feud escalates after a patient dies. Jack refuses to listen to Phillip when he offers to help Jack overcome his gambling problem, but later asks Karen Wilder to help him. Aaron tries to figu

Kate's friend, feminist professor Marina, tries desperately to 'get pregnant' but has to work against, rather than with, her husband. Aaron works against Tommy Wilmette in an attempt to get his friend, David, approved for a controversial gene therapy treatment. Diane tries to get marijuana for an ill patient.

Kate and Tommy travel to Washington D.C. to speak out on Health Care Reform. Marina arranges to adopt the child of a pregnant teenager. Jack treats the incredibly annoying woman from ep #52.

Phillip and Aaron present their plan to buy Chicago Hope to the staff, where it's met with resounding complaints. Aaron tries to define his relationship with Maricela. The ER treats a patient with numerous psychosomatic ailments. Kronk gets in trouble when he performs a lung reduction operation, a procedure vetoed by the patient's HMO. Billy visits the patient's HMO representative, the 'freaky' Jonathan Saunders, to straighten things out.

Aaron receives a shock when a renowned Hungarian sculptor claims to be his father. Phillip, spurred by Aaron's reunion with his father, visits his son Michael only to be rebuffed. Watters is later carjacked. Phillip and Michael work together to save an injured gang member. Dr. Austin treats an 11-year-old genius.

The whole staff comes together when Danny Nyland is horribly injured in a car accident. Austin tries to get a heart transplant for a Pulitzer Prize winning author who's already received, and abused, a heart transplant. Jack falls deeper into gambling.

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.

Watters is reunited with his Vietnam C.O. when the colonel is admitted suffering from rheumatoid arthritis. Phillip is baffled by the colonel's refusal to accept treatment. Kate has her hands full when Sara is traumatized by the accidental death of a Little League teammate. Wilkes and Nyland have a role reversal, with Danny staying calm and serene and Wilkes acting the hothead, over Ricky Jackson's use of ER supplies.

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.

Jack has his hands full with two of Karen's patients, Harriet Owens, who hasn't moved out of his house yet, and the delusional Luke Sarison, who believes McNeil is his father. Aaron and Kate vie for chief of surgery. Phillip is invited to join his latest girlfriend, Emma, when she moves to Paris. Danny Nyland is arrested for the Jessup death, and subsequently transferred from the ER to the blood bank.

Jeffrey Geiger returns, bearing the news that he's a partner in the newly formed Hope Health Care. Kate bears with Jeffrey's advice in a critical heart transplant operation. Wilkes takes a wild helicopter ride to fetch the donor heart. Dr. Kronk tries to find a solution for his Alzheimer's afflicted father. McNeil and Shutt pontificate about life and religion following a patient's claim that she was healed by a vision of the virgin mother.