A recently graduated New York City physician, Dr. Joel Fleischman, is sent to practice in the fictional town of Cicely, Alaska to fulfill his obligation after Alaska paid for his medical education. Early episodes deal with Fleischman's culture shock in the small town. While the show was nominally premised on the fish out of water conflict between Fleischman's big city ways and the small-town mores of the Cicely residents, its focus shifted to dive more deeply into the quirky personalities of the eccentric townfolk.