A well-dressed middle-aged woman walks into the hospital, looking for her husband, who may be a patient at the hospital. The first person she talks to behind the desk barely listens to her before placing the staff meal order. The second person blows her off entirely. She corners Wyatt, who gets a page in the middle of the conversation and tells her to talk to someone behind the counter. Finally, she gets a hold of Ollie and begs for her help. The woman explains that she was away over the weekend, and when she got back, her husband was gone, and his work said that they had gotten a call about his medical coverage from Metropolitan General. The woman gets understandably frantic, and says that her husband's name is David Porter. Ollie describes him, and once they have verified that they're talking about the same guy, says that Mr. Porter came in Saturday with chest pains and had some tests. Mrs. Porter wants to know if her husband is okay, and Ollie leaves to get the last doctor that treated him. It's not looking good for Mr. Porter, is it? If he was fine, Ollie would just say so. Mrs. Porter takes a seat.
Ollie wants to know why Boies has to talk to the wife. It's Boies' job, he says. Ollie points out that there may be legal issues. Boies says she's not helping. Ollie wants to know what Boies will say, but he doesn't know, and he heads over to greet Mrs. Porter. After introducing himself, Boies tells her that her husband was admitted, and there were complications, and her husband went into shock and died of cardiac arrest. Mrs. Porter says, "I can't breathe." Boies apologizes again, but Mrs. Porter still can't breathe. You're a doctor, man! Do a tracheotomy or something! But I think poor Mrs. Porter needs more than that.
Ben and Max are walking down the hall discussing the upcoming "M & M" conference, which we discover stands for "Morbidity and Mortality." Ben is of the opinion that said conference is about "assigning blame" and "covering [their] asses." Max feels that it's about "learning from [their] mistakes." Anyone who has watched ER can tell you that Ben is mostly right. They meet up with Lab Guy (I think he has a name, and I think it's Pirandello, but I'm just going to call him Lab Guy), who says he loves "Death and Donuts" because it's like the Roman Coliseum. This is the same guy who wanted to put a picture of Hitler in the lab last week. He's quirky. We see many other doctors filing in and taking seats.
Max starts off the conference by reminding everyone that this is confidential, and turns things over to Ben. Stiles is called on to present the case. The patient, David Porter, was forty-one years old, and came in with "radiating chest pains." We flash back to Stiles interviewing Porter, who doesn't smoke or exercise. They establish that the pain is like someone pressing on his chest, and he's been experiencing it all morning. Stiles suggests the symptoms of a heart problem (pain down the left arm, tingling fingers) and Porter isn't sure. Stiles says it could be "stress, heartburn, pinched nerve," or something cardiac related. Stiles wants to do an EKG to be sure.
Ben asks Stiles about the test, and she says she took Porter to the technician and then waited for the results. Cut to Stiles complaining to Boies that none of the staff is friendly to her. Boies tells her to relax, and tells her about a guy who got a blood clot from flying coach. Really? That's scary. Stiles wishes Boies a good day off, and someone comes up to tell her the EKG is done. While looking at the test results, she goes to ask the tech which one is Porter's, because they're apparently not labeled. The tech is on the way out and doesn't answer her. Stile looks at several test results, and finds one that apparently meets her requirements. She tells Ben that the EKG revealed heart problems. Ben establishes that the EKGs were not labeled, and that she picked the one that fit the diagnosis she had already made, but she really didn't know if it was Porter's results. That Ben is tricky. He should be a lawyer. Or a homicide detective. Stiles gets upset at being caught in her mistake. Ben asks what she did , and after recovering some composure, Stiles says that "the threat of infarction appeared high on [their] differential," so she sought out "a cardiac consult, and a follow-up EKG."
Cut to Sid telling Porter that his follow-up EKG appears normal. Porter says he's feeling better, and wants to go home. He makes a joke about a "honey do" weekend -- in other words, "honey do this, honey do that." Aw, that's so Hi and Lois. In the process of explaining, he reveals that his wife is away for the weekend. Sid and Stiles ask him about stress, and Porter says he's a day trader, which Sid says seems like a stressful job. Sid says the new test doesn't mean Porter doesn't have a heart problem -- once the patient is removed from stress, the tests will often go back to normal. Stiles asks to see Sid outside. Stiles objects to keeping Porter there. Sid thinks Porter is "walking the ragged edge of disaster," and wants to "pull him back from the brink." Stiles looks concerned.
Sid tells Ben that it was decided to "transfer the patient to the cardiac catheterization lab" for surgery. Ben asks if Sid decided this himself. Sid says he consulted with the head of Cardiology. Cut to Sid trying to convince Heart Guy to do the surgery. Heart Guy doesn't think it sounds necessary, and he's got a squash game at four. Well, good to know his priorities are in place. Sid convinces Heart Guy to do it by promising to do all the prep work so that Heart Guy can "step right in."
During the surgery, Porter is awake and alert. I know about the dangers of anesthesia and all, but I don't think I would want to be awake while doctors were poking shit in my heart. I'm a big wimp that way. Heart Guy praises Sid's technique, and Sid says he's thinking of going into cardiology. Heart Guy pulls Sid aside and offers to let him to do the technique, even though he's never done one before. Oh, this doesn't look good. Sid agrees to do it. He tells Porter what he's doing as it happens. They watch the procedure on a monitor. Just as Sid goes into the coronary artery, Porter starts moaning in pain. Heart Guy says Porter is "infracting." No one will answer Porter's questions about what's happening to him, and when they do give him information, it's in medical terminology. Finally, Sid injects dye into the heart so they can figure out what's going on, and tells Porter he's having a heart attack.