surgery, but he is enraged at Peter for calling them. Romano then retracts the idea of an attending trauma surgeon, explaining to Peter that the fines social services and Medicare inflicted on the hospital roughly equal what Peter's yearly salary would have been. Romano then offers Benton a per diem surgical position with reduced benefits and more difficult scheduling, but Benton refuses. Romano also uses his considerable influence to blacklist Benton throughout the medical community, making it impossible for Benton to find a job in Chicago. Corday finds a new job for him in Philadelphia, but Carla will not continue joint custody of Reese if Peter leaves town (citing Peter's resistance to her and her husband Roger's plans to move the year before). Peter is then forced to go to Romano and accept the per diem position. After the court battle between Roger and himself, Benton is forced to move away from County to work better hours in another hospital, in order to gain custody of Reese. In his last surgery at County, Benton miraculously saves a six-year-old victim of a shooting accident. After County General After leaving the series, Benton was seen a few more times. The first time was when he was passing the torch to Dr. Corday and she told him that her marriage to Benton's friend and colleague Dr. Mark Greene was in trouble. His next appearance was at the funeral of Greene. Benton appears in a photo as part of a slideshow at Dr. Carter's farewell party, and Benton is heard in a voiceover memory as Carter leaves the ER for the last time in the 11th-season finale. Eriq La Salle made an uncredited appearance in the opening of "Heal Thyself" to tell the audience of the death of the show's creator Michael Crichton. Season 15 During the 15th and final season of ER, at the end of the episode "The Book of Abby", long-serving nurse Haleh Adams shows the departing Abby Lockhart a closet wall where all the past doctors and employees have put their locker name tags. Among them, the tag "Benton" can be seen. Benton returns in the 19th episode of the 15th (final) season of ER in the episode "Old Times" which first was broadcast on 12 March 2009. In the episode, he visits an old friend and former student John Carter who is awaiting a kidney transplant, and it is