In 1953, after giving birth to her daughter, Robin, Kathy Grant came down with viral pneumonia and began to experience hallucinations. To help his wife, Dr. Richard "Dick" Grant Jr. called in his cousin, Nurse Peggy Regan, who had returned to Cedars Hospital. Meanwhile, Janet Johnson, a voluptuous nurse, arrived in Dick's orbit. Janet was attracted to Dick's boyish innocence -- and to his money. When Kathy recovered from her pneumonia, she began to pull away from Dick out of guilt for deceiving him, causing Dick to fall prey to Janet's predatory charms. Before long they were having an affair. Tired of her sham of marriage, Kathy finally told Dick the truth about Robin—she was not his daughter. Dick tersely replied that he didn't care; he was in love with Janet, and he wanted their marriage annulled. By the end of 1954, Janet was getting so impatient to marry Dick that she bought and engagement ring for Dick to give to her. Dick grew tired of her effrontery and broke off the relationship.

Later, Dick was frustrated by his new boss, the pompous and dictatorial Dr. Bart Thompson. Janet was quick to notice the growing enmity between them, and she began dating Bart to get revenge for Dick's rejection of her. Janet gloated as Bart played Machiavellian head games with Dick, keeping him working around the clock and then upstaging him with other interns. Finally, Dick became so physically exhausted and so emotionally demoralized that he "froze" during a skin graft operation and abruptly left Cedars.

At the same time, a new doctor, John Brooks, arrived on the scene. Bart insinuated himself into John's life and tried to steer him toward plastic surgery. No one suspected that Bart was actually John's father. However, Janet suspected something was up and began dating John in hopes of getting at the truth. Before long, John began to suspect that he had walked into a strange situation. Months later, John was killed in a car accident and never learned that he was Bart's son. Devastated, Bart admitted the truth to his colleagues at Cedars and apologized to Dick for his diabolical behavior. Bart returned to San Francisco. While Janet moved to New York, where, true to form, she married a rich man.

A year later, after a bitter divorce, Janet returned to Los Angeles and began working as a private nurse to her old nemesis, Kathy. At this point, Kathy was married to Mark Holden and left unable to walk following a fall.. Janet would leave town again after Kathy, in a wheelchair, was struck by a car during a freak accident involving two children on a bicycle.