Physician, Heal Thyself begins with a teenage girl in medical distress returning to the clinic where she had just underwent an abortion. She dies shortly thereafter from complications stemming from the procedure, and her mother requests that Quincy (Jack Klugman) conduct an autopsy. Quincy finds some evidence that Dr. Ronald Shafer (John Dehner) botched the procedure which ultimately caused the girl's death, but it is not conclusive enough to take action against him. Through further investigation, Quincy learns that Dr. Shafer has an alcohol problem and was possibly drunk during this surgery as well as others which had tragic outcomes. This puts Quincy on a mission to obtain more evidence against the doctor in an effort to put a stop to him harming patients.
While this episode deals with medical malpractice and incompetence due to an addiction which is a compelling topic in some respects, the fact that the deaths were the result of negligence and nothing was intentionally done wrong just seemed to make for a very dull story in my opinion. Here we see yet another medical professional showing a blatant disregard for the welfare of his patients and no remorse for his actions, this is of course becoming an overused and far-fetched plot of Season 4. There also really isn't much of a mystery featured here as Quincy figures out what happened early on and then becomes primarily focused on finding evidence to support his conclusion.
I found the final scene at the end to be especially ridiculous as Quincy orders a round of plain lemonades for his friends gathered at Danny's bar saying that any of them could become alcoholics. While I get the message trying to be conveyed, it just came across as righteous and hypocritical as we all know that group will be sitting around the same table drinking plenty of rounds of beer, whiskey and scotches in many, many episodes to come.
Overall, a pretty weak Season 4 episode with a dull plot and not a whole lot else going for it unfortunately.