At the Metropolitan Hospital, where Horace Waverly is Physician Superintendent, doctors Bill Morgan and Tommy Ellis vie for the attention of nurse Madge Wilson. One day, Frank Snowden, son of the wealthy and influential Harris Snowden, is brought in with an acute case of appendicitis, which requires immediate surgery. Harris insists on waiting for Dr. Harvey, their family physician, to arrive and give his opinion of the matter, but Dr. Morgan performs the urgent operation after quickly securing the consent of Frank's wife. When Dr. Morgan is reprimanded by Waverly for taking Dr. Harvey's patient and is dismissed from the hospital, he angrily criticizes Waverly's and Harvey's unethical behavior, accusing both of serving only the petty whims of the rich and obstructing basic medical care for the sick and injured. One of Metropolitan's wealthiest resident patients is the chronically lonely Mrs. Crane, who, after learning of the young doctor's dismissal, uses her influence to have him reinstated. Meanwhile, two reporters arrive at the hospital and wait for the impending arrival of gangster Butch McCarthy, who has been released from prison for one day to visit his hospitalized mother. The reporters try to get the story about how Waverly has kept the con's visit a secret, especially considering that police officer Harrigan, who is being treated for the gunshot wounds from Butch's gun, is on the same floor. Dr. Morgan spoils Madge and Dr. Ellis' plans for a date when a staff shortage requires him to instruct Ellis to stay at the hospital. The eager Dr. Ellis proposes marriage to Madge, but she tells him that she is in love with Dr. Morgan. Later, when Dr. Morgan learns that his reinstatement came not from his own merit as a physician, but from Mrs. Crane's doings, he decides to leave the hospital in the name of saving his self-respect. Mrs. Crane wants Dr. Morgan to be her physician, so she offers to set him up in a private practice and keep him in business by sending her rich friends to him. Seeing no other alternative, Dr. Morgan accepts the offer, but when Madge finds out about his decision and believes that he has acted out of greed, not self-respect, she spurns him and agrees to marry Dr. Ellis. Escorted by the police, Butch McCarthy is brought to the bedside of the woman who is supposedly his mother, but once his handcuffs are removed, he grabs the gun that was smuggled in by the phony patient and goes after Harrigan. After Dr. Morgan is shot by the convict while trying to stop him, Harrigan's wife succeeds in preventing her husband's murder by shooting Butch. Dr. Morgan is rushed to the operating table, where it is discovered that the nature of his bullet wound is so severe that all hope for his recovery is abandoned. However, the still-conscious Dr. Morgan pleads with Dr. Ellis to perform a method of operation that only they have studied at the hospital. Dr. Ellis agrees, and under Dr. Morgan's guidance, the risky operation begins. During the procedure, Dr. Morgan tells Madge that he had reconsidered Mrs. Crane's offer and turned it down, thus fully redeeming himself. When the operation ends successfully, Dr. Ellis insists that Dr. Morgan ask Madge to marry him, and she accepts.