Henderson says that Duntsch told the Dallas Medical Center administration about the Martin and Summers cases, but explained that the outcomes hadnt been his fault: Summers, he said, had been paralyzed by a bad drug interaction, and Martin had died because of complications from anesthesia. Over this period, Duntsch performed back surgeries that left his patients in a worse condition, paralyzed, or deceased. He had no idea what he was doing. Death podcast, which inspired the Peacock series. Even if a plaintiff wins the maximum award, after you pay your lawyer and your experts and go through, potentially, years of trial, not much is left. It was widely acknowledged that Christopher was a confident person, and D Magazine reported that many liked him immediately when they met him (though his fellow neurosurgeons reportedly found him to be "fast-talking and cocksure"). The board fined him $3,000, assigned him a monitor, and required him to take classes in medical recordkeeping. The nuance of his private life is obscured by allusions to a failed football career and a demeaning father that somehow are. (So far only Mary Efurd and the family of Floella Brown have filed suit against Duntsch, though the other patients or their families have all retained counsel as well.). I think what happened is that as things began to fall apart, the only thing he knew was to try harder, Don Duntsch said. Christopher Duntsch wrote that he was ready to become a "cold blooded killer". Duntsch was convicted and sentenced to life behind bars. Because of greed. The "deadly weapons" were his hands and surgical tools. During the summer of 2012, as Duntsch was searching for a new hospital, another doctor who had witnessed Duntschs errors at Baylor sent a complaint about Duntsch to the Medical Board, according to Kirby. The conversation took place in January 2013, after it had become clear that Duntsch would practice until someone stopped him, six months before anyone actually did. His mistakes were obvious and well-documented. He said he had no doubt that his son cared about his patients. Ill do some crying. At the time, Duntsch was accused of injuring 33 out of 38 patients in less than two years before the Texas Medical Board revoked his license. But more than anything, we don't get to know Christopher Duntsch. Why didnt he stop? This was a very rare phenomenonmost of the doctors who reported Duntsch had never filed a report before. At the time, Duntsch had been fielding offers in Dallas, San Diego and New York from medical centers eager to have a neurosurgeon with his seemingly impressive resume on staff. Duntsch was offered a $600,000 advance and a temporary suite in a luxury hotel to come to Dallas while the couple searched for a new home in Plano, according to a 2018Dr. You know, hell call and say goodnight to his boys, um, sometimes hell have bedtime stories and try to be as normal as possible.. and a Ph.D. from a top-tier medical school, a decade of experience, and a central role in a pioneering stem-cell treatment. The once notable neurosurgeon is now 50 years old. He was brilliant. But a few years later, he popped up in Kermit doing just thatas well as selling drugs out of the operating room and performing bizarre surgeries he hadnt been trained for. A version of this story ran in the September 2013 issue. He had a slick marketing team in Best Docs Network, a physician PR company that pumps out infomercials to local TV stations. He went to the operating room and asked to speak to the doctor. As for what Baylor told Dallas Medical Center, a Baylor spokesperson said in a statement to the Observer that, It has been the longstanding policy of Baylor to respond with comprehensive information when it receives a proper inquiry from another hospital. Photos, illustrations and other art may be available for syndication but must be confirmed. But according to Dr. Robert Henderson, another neurosurgeon at Dallas Medical Center, the comprehensive information Baylor sent over when Duntsch applied consisted of an email saying that there were no issues with Duntschs performance, that hed been on staff and had voluntarily resigned. Martin selected Dr. Christopher Duntsch, a neurosurgeon with a glowing reputation, to perform the surgery at Baylor Plano Hospital. Goals scored. But it wouldnt be the end of the trouble between the pair. When Summers woke up he couldnt move his arms or legs. In the two years he practiced as a spine surgeon across four Dallas institutions, Duntsch operated on 37 people. The process for resolving complaints is slow and painstaking, set up in statute to guarantee doctors the maximum legal protection. Things were rough during the state budget crisis in 2011, but now hiring is back up to normal. In the time between the first complaint to the board, and when Duntsch was finally stopped on June 26, five of his patients were seriously injured and one died. I left with him and believed in him and then, you know, he just kind of fell apart.. Was it that he was unqualified and completely unaware of regional anatomy? Duntsch was arrested in July 2015. I was very independent and I had to become dependent on others for transportation, for my meals, for a lot of things.". He didnt tell them about Baylors internal reports that faulted him in both cases, according to Henderson. .css-1me6ynq{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-decoration-thickness:0.0625rem;text-decoration-color:#125C68;text-underline-offset:0.25rem;color:#125C68;-webkit-transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;}.css-1me6ynq:hover{color:#595959;text-decoration-color:#595959;}Peacock's Dr. Death is a chilling dramatization of the real-life story of former neurosurgeon Christopher Duntsch. Duntsch continued to operate in the year it took for the board to investigate him. He has nothing. You know in the beginning he talked about marriage. Outlets must also tag the Observer in all social media posts. What all this means is that the Texas Legislature has committed the state to a policy of medical deregulationa free-market system in which doctors can practice as they please with limited government interference. 2021 The Texas Observer. They used phrases like the worst surgeon Ive ever seen. One doctor I spoke with, brought in to repair one of Duntschs spinal fusion cases, remarked that it seemed Duntsch had learned everything perfectly just so he could do the opposite. Forty-five minutes passed, then an hour, two hours, with no word. The series is based on reporting from the podcast Dr. Death, from the same production studio that created Dirty John. For Mary Efurd, it was sweet justice for the man who ruined her life. [3] Peacock's Dr. Death is a chilling dramatization of the real-life story of former neurosurgeon Christopher Duntsch.As those watching the show know, Christopher was dubbed "Dr. Death" in D Magazine . Even when the board does sanction a doctor, those sanctions are often lighteven in cases in which the doctor is badly impaired. Another woman named Megan Kane claimed he ate a paper blotter of LSD and took prescription painkillers in the early 2000s on his birthday. His father was a missionary and physical therapist and his mother was a school teacher. Don was a lieutenant with the Garland Police Department, and had spent enough time in hospitals to know this delay wasnt a good sign. Get all your true crime news from Oxygen. His report was damning. He waited until they told him his wife had been sent to the intensive care unit. Or, was he actually a skilled surgeon intent on defying the Hippocratic Oath, and deliberately causing harm? His younger brother, Nathan, said he had spoken to Duntschs friend and former employee, Jerry Summers, who was left a quadriplegic after one of the botched surgeries. Its a completely egregious case, Leigh Hopper, then head of communications for the Texas Medical Board, told The Dallas Morning News in June. A Texas neurosurgeon accused of intentionally botching multiple spinal surgeries, resulting in the death of two . Though many were passed off as accidents, a surgeon told D Magazine that these mistakes were "never events" and should not "ever happen in someone's entire career.". .css-lwn4i5{display:block;font-family:Neutra,Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif;font-weight:bold;letter-spacing:-0.01rem;margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0;text-align:center;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}@media (any-hover: hover){.css-lwn4i5:hover{color:link-hover;}}@media(max-width: 48rem){.css-lwn4i5{font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.1;}}@media(min-width: 40.625rem){.css-lwn4i5{font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.1;}}@media(min-width: 48rem){.css-lwn4i5{font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.1;}}@media(min-width: 64rem){.css-lwn4i5{font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.1;}}Leann Rimes Shares Video Montage for Anniversary, Read Erin Napier's Post about 'Home Town', Christie Brinkley = Iconic In Bareback Riding Pic, 35 Celebrity Relationships That Upset Fans, Celebrities You Didn't Know Had Famous Moms, 30 Celebrity Feuds That Were Never Resolved, Celebrity Couples from 50 Years You Forgot About, We Ranked Every Single Adam Sandler Movie, 34 'Bridgerton' Fun Facts to Fuel Your Obsession, Where Youve Seen the Cast of Bridgerton Before. In 2017, Duntsch was sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of maiming one of his patients. In 1998, the board found Dr. Greggory Phillips to be addicted to painkillers, and that he was prescribing painkillers to himself and family members. We talked about marriage pretty quickly. Of the three in the academy, viz. Duntsch, it turned out, had, as with other patients, cut into Glidewells vertebral artery; an MRI found that he had also left a sponge festering in the soft tissue of Glidewells throat. Create a free profile to get unlimited access to exclusive videos, breaking news, sweepstakes, and more! The protections make some sense. Duntsch, 44, is the first surgeon known to be sentenced to prison for a botched surgery. Duntsch was still living with Young, but he tried to carry out the dual romances by lying to each woman. Not only shouldnt he be operating, he shouldnt be making any decisions about treatment or pathology. It had no effect whatsoever.. "He destroyed the lives of essentially every single patient that he touched," Joshua Jackson, who plays Duntsch in Dr. Death, told Newsweek. He was smart. And while the Medical Board investigated, the pattern continued. "He has a job inside the prison. Promising Beginnings Christopher Daniel Duntsch was born in Montana on April 3, 1971, and raised alongside his three siblings in an affluent suburb of Memphis, Tennessee. Public Citizen concluded that the board moves slowly because its understaffed and underfunded. He resigned soon after, with full clinical privileges. Mr. The procedure can improve stability in the back, according to the Mayo Clinic, and relieve pain. So to be able to do that much wrong, I felt that he must have known at some point in time how to do it right. The Collin County medical examiner who performed the autopsy was so astounded by what had happened to Kellie Martins body that he brought her back in for another examination. 'Cult mom' Lori Vallow's hair found on duct tape used to wrap son's body, Inside Jeffrey Epstein's private calendar including meeting with Noam Chomsky, Heartbroken family launch new lawsuit against Walmart over son's death, I won $188m lotto, I only got $88m after taxes but there was a bigger blow to come, 2020 THE SUN, US, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED | TERMS OF USE | PRIVACY | YOUR AD CHOICES | SITEMAP, Duntsch, aka Dr Death, was sentenced to life in prison in 2017, Dr Death - Trailer for the Peacock series based on the true story of Christopher Duntsch.
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