Disillusioned doctor, overworked and underappreciated in a very demanding community, finds himself nearing retirement with little prospect of relaxing and living a more balanced life. He has a brush with death one night, as a patient sets him up under the pretense of a house call.He is saved in the nick of time, but sustains an injury that has him hospitalised 100 miles away. He recuperates in hospital, and is asked to do emergency shifts whilst he is still there, as the hospital is in dire need of doctors. He encounters a vastly different patient base, more diverse and to him seemingly more intent to criminal behaviour, many prone to start legal action against doctors and the hospital, only for financial gain. The boundaries of ethical behaviour becomes mottled as he starts to enforce his own justice on patients he feels deserving, and ones where he does not believe the judicial system would be effective. He infers severe physical and psychological damage on his victims, but also becomes the enemy of hardened and highly intelligent criminal. This leads to the doctor being taken hostage, but he has the opportunity to immobilize the hosatge taker. He, instead of saying for the authorities to arrest the criminal, decides once again to exert his own justice. The doctor eventually kills somebody that is not a patient nor a criminal, now facing the justice system he has never trusted.