Follow the frantic lives of a military hospital's resident doctors and nurses as they navigate the relentless life-and-death battles on the operating table, and the never-ending conflicts that arise from working in a war zone of Southern Afghanistan.

Modelled after the real Canadian-lead NATO Role 3 Hospital, the set is a meticulous re-creation of a portion of the hospital compound and the vast Kandahar Airfield, including the helicopter landing zone, boardwalk area and barracks, which housed over 15,000 military and civilian personnel.

A Role 3 Medical Unit is the highest level of care available in Kandahar, with facilities for emergency surgery and intensive care. The Role 3 hospital is improvised quarters: a jumble of tents, temporary buildings made of plywood and duct tape, even repurposed shipping containers that line the unit as its protective outer walls. Within these walls an international team of doctors, nurses and medics deliver the best battlefield surgical care anywhere to wounded soldiers, civilians caught in the crossfire, even the enemy.

Helming the hospital on behalf of the Canadian Forces is Colonel Xavier Marks (Elias Koteas), a career military surgeon and Head of the Role 3 Multinational Medical Unit. New Role 3 recruits include Major Rebecca Gordon (Michelle Borth), a top-of-her-class trauma surgeon who is eager to impress, along with Captain Bobby Trang (Terry Chen), who is thrown into the deep end as a Trauma Team Leader upon his arrival to the unit. The only non-military medical staffer is the brilliant British neurosurgeon Dr. Simon Hill (Luke Mably), leaving the others to wonder why he volunteered to work in a war zone. Overseeing the mental well being of the troops on their tour of duty is the Australian psychiatrist Major Grace Pederson (Deborah Kara Unger). And as every doctor knows - they are nothing without their nurses: Chief of Nursing, Commander Will Royal (Arnold Pinnock), a registered nurse serving with the Canadian Forces, won't let them forget this universal truth.