A young girl requests a vaginal rejuvenation surgery from Dr. Audrey Lim, but when she asked why, at such a young age she wants to have this surgery, the girl, named Asha, doesn’t answer. Then, when Dr. Lim checks, she begs Asha to tell her who did this, and she revealed she was circumcised at 2 years old and just wants to be fixed. Dr. Lim agrees, but her resident, Dr. Park has several objections, as he figures out the patient supplied a fake idea and is underage. Dr. Lim doesn’t mind, and is set on doing the surgery, even if it hurts her career.
Shaun Murphy leaves his apartment early that morning, with Lea still there. He greets Dr. Melendez and lies to him about why he left his apartment early, claiming he just wanted to get to work. Then, after seeing the janitor burp, he explains to Melendez that the janitor has pancreatic cancer, as he’s burped 17 times in the last 10 minutes and is jaundice. Melendez walks by the janitor, Paul Buendia, to check, then immediately orders Shaun and Claire Brown to give him a CT scan. Shaun confirms his first thought — the janitor has stage III pancreatic cancer. Melendez tests Shaun and has him deliver the news to the janitor, except it goes south when he blurts out that he only has 12 months to live. Paul brings in his family to decide whether to have a risky surgery or to wait out his surgery. “My family wants surgery. I want what my family wants, I love them,” Paul tells Shaun. “Long ago, I made a decision to be there for them no matter what. And if the last choice I make in life is consistent with that, I’m comfortable with that.”
Dr. Lim carries out her vaginal reconstruction surgery, and all goes well. When the girl wants to get back to her parents, who don’t know she left, she is struck with unbearable pain, and put back under. Dr. Andrews has Lim tell her parents what happened, and says he will take the administrative fall out. The parents come and won’t allow Dr. Lim to do the clitoral reconstruction on Mara to relieve her pain and would like to get a second opinion. However, Child Protective Services steps in, and says Mara won’t be going anywhere until she completes an investigation.
In surgery with the janitor, Melendez removes the tumor, but there is leaking pancreatic fluid and the doctors rush to fix it. Shaun and Claire alert the family that the surgery went well and he will be fine. Then, Lea shows up to see if Shaun wants lunch, and he storms away in a rage. Claire runs after him to tell him he isn’t be fair to Lea, and he replies, “I can’t be honest if i don’t know how I feel.”
Mara’s parents reveal that her grandmother and aunt circumcised her when they were babysitting when she was 2 years old. The father said “it wasn’t a big deal,” and her mother said she’s an honors student and they raised her right, as if to make up for it. The CPS agent decides to wake up Mara and ask what she wants to do with her body — either do the clitoral reconstruction or remove her full clitoris. Mara chose to remove her full clitoris, claiming she made a mistake to even get the surgery in the first place.
Shaun goes to visit Dr. Glassman to help him pick a surgeon, which he only has 48 hours left to do. “I’m not afraid of dying,” Glassman tells Shaun. “Why not? You should be. Dying is terrible. What’s worse than dying?” Shaun replies. Glassman reveals he’s nervous to become a vegetable, or lose his ability to perform surgeries and think on his own. “I don’t know who I’d be,” he says. “You’d be my friend,” Shaun replies, but quickly has to leave upon learning that Paul started to crash.
Dr. Lim fights with Dr. Andrews over the surgery, and refuses to perform the clitoral removal, even when Andrews threatens to fire her. Dr. Morgan Reznick steps in, and asks if Mara can be woken up one more time to answer without her parents watching over her. Even when Dr. Lim speaks to her again, she says she still wants the clitoral removal. However, in surgery, Dr. Lim goes against the patient’s wishes and does the clitoral reconstruction with a skin graft from inside her cheek.
In the OR, the doctors are doing all they can to save Paul. They sadly call time of death, and while Shaun offers to tell the family, Melendez sends Claire. The son starts to blame the rest of his family for telling Paul to do the surgery, and they each start to blame themselves. Shaun jumps in to say “That’s not true. Paul wanted this surgery. He told me he wanted this surgery.” The family all comes together to hug.
Mara woke up and was feeling much better, and realized the chunk of inside her cheek was missing, showing that she realized Dr. Lim did the clitoral reconstruction. She looked up to Dr. Lim with a smile and thanked her.
Back at home, Shaun made Lea cereal and a banana, and then the baseball she gave him. “It hurt. Every night I would come home and I would look at that baseball, and I would think of you. The baseball was here but you weren’t.” Shaun says to her. “If you stay, you will go away again, and it will hurt again. Please go back to Hershey.”
In the final few seconds, we see Dr. Glassman counting down into surgery. We’ll see what happens after his surgery, next Monday at 10 PM on ABC!