Mark examines a guy's throat with a tongue depressor. As soon as Mark removes it, the patient asks, "It's strep throat, right?" Mark drones, "No fever, no swollen glands...." Throat says, "I had the exact thing last year. It was strep." Mark, not meeting the patient's eye, curtly says, "You have a cold, Mr. Ramirez." "Antibiotics, ten days, right?" asks Mr. Ramirez (formerly Throat). Mark exposits, "No white spots on your tonsils. Antibiotics won't help." Mr. Ramirez insists, "Well, last year I took 'em, and it cleared it right up!" Mark mutters, "It would have cleared up anyway." Mr. Ramirez begs, "Come on, doc! I've been waiting three hours, here!" Mark contemptuously tells Mr. Ramirez to get some rest and drink plenty of fluids. "Can you just give me the prescription?" Mr. Ramirez stubborns. Before Mark can yell at him, Lisa appears in the doorway in a yellow gown to tell Mark that he's needed. On his way out, Mark repeats, "You don't have strep throat!" "I'll take them just in case!" Mr. Ramirez yells after him.

In the hall, paramedics are doing compressions on a woman Lisa says is eighty-five and collapsed in her nursing home. Mark asks whether they've got a pulse; Pam, squatting on the patient's bed, says, "No -- found her in fine v-fib; intubated; shocked her five times; two rounds of drugs." Mark asks how long they've been at it, and Pam says it's been twenty minutes; Lisa adds that the patient is "pretty blue." The team -- including Nurse Mullet, back in full effect -- move Pretty Blue off the gurney and onto the bed. Mark asks whether the paramedics got any medical history on Pretty Blue. Pam says she had emphysema, and that she's on home oxygen. Lisa says that Pretty Blue's asystole. Mark asks when the last epi was, and Lisa says it was five minutes ago. Mark, listening with his stethoscope, tells Lisa to push another amp, and then shakes his head and moves away. Lisa, still doing compressions, asks, "What?" Mark sniffs, "She didn't respond to twenty minutes of ACLS in the field; she doesn't have a chance." Pam says she knows, but that the family wanted them to bring her in. Mark snots, "Why? So we can flog her for another hour?" Pam sets her lips in a line. Lisa asks Mark, "You want dopamine?" "Nope," he clips. Pam apologizes (for...doing her job? Don't give in to his crap, Pam!), and Mark mutters, "She should have died in her own bed." Mark tells Lisa to hold compressions. Pretty Blue's in asystole. Mark calls the time of death. Lisa tells him that Pretty Blue's family's in chairs, and he takes off without a word or a backward glance. Pam stands by, looking annoyed. Lisa tells her, "Don't worry about it."