On his first day as a resident Kildare struggles with the question of whether to tell a patient---and the patient's wife, an old school friend---that he has been diagnosed with leukemia.

Kildare is assigned to work with the highly frugal, penny-pinching veteran central supply nurse to clean out obsolete equipment. But the nurse doesn't think most of the equipment in the "Elephant's Graveyard", as the downstairs storage area is jokingly called, is obsolete.

Kildare is concerned by a number of careless professional mistakes veteran doctor Harvey Gruboldt has made lately, but Gruboldt accuses Kildare of trying to undermine him, and even becomes defensive when Gillespie calls him out for the mistakes, including those involving a mother and daughter Gruboldt has long been friends with.

Yvette Mimiuex plays the part of a girl who is totally smitten with surfing and is hell bent on being the BEST surfer. She is in Blair and Gillespe diagnoses her with epilepsy. She is warned not to surf OR drive a car until the siezures are brought under control. Despite everyone's concern and warnings she keeps sneaking off to the beach to ""catch the big wave"". Kildare and her friend Clu Gullager go to the beach several times to stop her. At home she has a grand mal(BIG) siezure and is re-hospitalized. It ends there and is continued into part 2. VERY good show, brings you right back to the 60's.

Yvette Mimieux continues her surfing. She and Kildare go to the beach at night and they ""make out"". He is infatuated with her but cant get her to accept the epilepsy. She has many smaller siezures. Kildare meets all the beach bums and beatnicks of that time. Ultimately she goes for a surf, catches the wave off her life and has a grand mal siezure at the same time. She drowns and Kildare is there to pronounce her dead. GREAT episode with a sad ending.