Dr Rainville, an old country doctor very attached to his patients, must retire and seek a replacement. Jeanne Dion, an emergency physician from Montreal, agrees to come and replace him in NormÔetal for a few weeks, but she does not think of staying any longer in this remote village in Quebec. NormÔetal is a village in decline, whose only major business, a mine, closed thirty years ago. Life is difficult there and the relationship with the patients, much more intimate than that experienced by Jeanne in the emergency room of a large hospital. When the old doctor dies, Jeanne must decide whether or not to stay in the village and if she accepts a responsibility which engages her well beyond what she foresees.