A nursing trainee who believes that whatever it takes should be done to save the patient clashes with a veteran nurse who believes in doing what is best for the patient, including letting them die. This conflict could have formed the basis of a hospital thriller about the "God complex" or illegal organ harvesting, but THE SHIFT is a drama about two characters who have differing ideas of compassion and mercy. The publicity materials would have viewers believe that Danny Glover (HONEYDRIPPER) is the veteran nurse, but he is actually the special guest star nursing supervisor who pops up intermittently to dispense advice. The conflict - packed into a tight seventy-six minutes - is actually between trainee Amanda (Casey Fitzgerald, AFTER THE WIZARD) as overeager as she is tactless, and her guilt-ridden nursing prefect Kayle (writer/executive producer Leo Oliva, RED ICE) who abuses prescription drugs to get through the day and may be on the verge of a breakdown as they deal with a long comatose teenager (whose presence disturbs the already twitchy Kayle), a former R.N. with dementia who has had her do-not-resuscitate order overturned by her family and has coded four times, and a young girl dying of cancer who tells Kayle that she does not want to cause her mother any more pain.