At Richmond Trinity Hospital, Director of Nursing Christina Hawthorne is locked in a battle against forces far too large for any one person to handle. Whether fighting to see that a homeless woman is treated like a human being, talking a close friend and suicidal cancer patient off a ledge, accommodating the clashing egos of the hospital's talented doctors and administrators, or managing a nursing staff of grizzled veterans and idealistic young rookies, she's the much-needed conscience for an organization that all too often forgets whom it's there to serve. Still learning to cope with the death of her husband and make peace with her powerful and grieving mother-in-law, Christina looks to balance her pressure cooker career with raising a smart but willful teenage girl as she tries to change a broken system, one patient at a time.