 Elizabeth Kenny, as a young nurse out in the Australian bush discovers an effective treatment for polio, but can t get official recognition or sanction for her techniques and theories. For more than three decades (while she tells her fiancée she can t marry him, and repeatedly confronts the pigheaded orthopedic specialist Dr. Brack), she is prevented from treating acute cases and is ridiculed, while she seeks formal recognition for the efficacy of her treatment.