Like pilot trainingyou dont expect a trained pilot to get drunk and fly his plane into the ground., But its more complicated than that. 300 (2.48 per match) 2021. His father says Christopher Duntsch is a humbled man. Dubbed "Dr. Death," the case gained national attention, revealing how easy. Dr. Kirby, on his end, called him a sociopath. The first three surgeries of Duntschs trial took place on three consecutive days in July 2012, a month after the first complaint against him with the Texas Medical Board. He wrote grants and secured more than $3 million in funding. I left with him and believed in him and then, you know, he just kind of fell apart.. Kirby called the owner of University General. Duntsch was arrested in July 2015. We now know that the Texas Medical Board was working behind the scenes in summer 2012, trying to find grounds to temporarily suspend Duntschs license. 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.". and a Ph.D. from a top-tier medical school, a decade of experience, and a central role in a pioneering stem-cell treatment. In 2012, the public interest research group Public Citizen commissioned a research project to cross-reference doctors sanctioned by the Texas Medical Board with those listed in the National Practitioner Databank, managed by the federal Department of Health and Human Services. He said that Summers had broken down in to uncontrolled crying and said, I know your brother would never do this to me on purpose.. Prior to her new position, she was the Senior News and Entertainment Editor for the brand, covering and editing all things in the entertainment, pop culture and celebrity world forGood Housekeeping. Don Martin, who was waiting outside, was told the operation wouldnt take more than 45 minutes. Jurors convicted Duntsch Tuesday of injury to an elderly person in the botched July 2012 surgery that put Mary Efurd in a wheelchair. In a specialized field like neurosurgery, that means further months of delay. Get an all-access pass to never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more! Kay Van Wey, a Dallas plaintiffs attorney who represented over 10 of Duntsch's patients, put it to ProPublica simply: The hospitals played a game of medical "kick the can." The Texas Medical Board finally suspended Duntsch's license on June 26, 2013, and permanently revoked it in December of that year. Even more surprising, these crimes came from a doctor who looked great on paper. Out July 15, Dr. Death introduces viewers to Christopher Duntsch, a real-life Texas-based surgeon who in 2017 was sentenced to life in prison after maiming and even killing almost all of the. As D Magazine put it, "His outcomes were so poor, so beyond the accepted standard of care, that a grand jury indicted him on five counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon as well as a single count of harming an elderly patient." And that with Duntsch, as with other bad doctors, the system worked exactly as it was designed to. When Summers woke up he couldnt move his arms or legs. Out of his 38 surgeries, only three had no complications. It takes the Texas Medical Board an average of nine months to resolve complaints. Ill do some crying. These doctors are busythey have practices of their own that pay a lot better than volunteering for the Medical Boardand there arent many of them. And Ill reflect back on how difficult those first months were afterwards. He felt confident. 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 true story of Christopher Duntsch is the subject of the haunting Peacock drama. During surgery, Duntsch had sliced through one of the arteries alongside Martins spine, as he had with Summers. In January, one of his patients at University General Hospital Dallas woke up paralyzed from the waist down, according to the patients lawyer. Is it right for him go to away, to be thrown away when all of them profited? she said of the hospitals that hired him. As a result, one patient died from a massive blood lost. Young is portrayed in the dramatized series by actress Molly Griggs, who brings to life the couples volatile arguments, including onedepiction in whichYoung announcesshe is pregnant just months into their relationship to a less-than-thrilled Duntsch, played by former Dawsons Creek star Joshua Jackson. But what is the real-life story behind Duntsch and Youngs complicated romance? Dr. Christopher Duntsch's patients ended up maimed and dead, but the real tragedy is that the Texas Medical Board couldn't stop him. A CT scan found that the metal spinal fusion hardware, meant to be placed on the patients spine to keep the vertebrae from moving, was sunk into the muscles of her lower back, inches from her spine. 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. When the Medical Board suspended Duntschs license, the agencys spokespeople too seemed shocked. Doctors brought in to clean up his surgeries decried his surgical misadventures, according to hospital records. In an official statement, she wrote, The way the lawis currently written, with a high bar of evidence for the board to meet, the process can take time so that the board can build a solid case. Summers remains paralyzed. He faxed over a picture of Duntsch to the residency program at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center to see if Duntsch had graduated. And the only thing she complained about was she couldnt find what she wanted to watch on TV.. ), Photo: The problem, she said, isnt staff. They showed photos of him as a baby, as a toddler, and as a boy getting a soccer ball for Christmas. How much risk can there be?. The eight-part series tells the harrowing true story of Dr. Christopher Duntsch who, across. Sometimes hell have bedtime stories and try to be as normal as possible.". Duntsch appealed his sentence and lost the appeal in 2018. While Christopher caused harm to many, it wasn't until a patient Mary Efurd that he was charged with a crime. Ill do some crying. The protections make some sense. But in Texas, when you go to see a doctor, there is a small but real chance that the doctor has been found by his or her peers to be a danger to the public, and that no one has bothered to do anything about it yet. "The nerve root had been severed. Among these doctors who escaped Medical Board action was one who racked up 22 malpractice suits over 12 years, totaling $2.4 million in judgments, for such things as performing unnecessary or harmful procedures or, in one case, removing the wrong body part, according to the federal database. The answer, in both cases, seems to be very little. But Duntsch was an anomaly for another reason: the barrage of complaints to the board. Create a free profile to get unlimited access to exclusive videos, breaking news, sweepstakes, and more! Forty-five minutes passed, then an hour, two hours, with no word. This was a very rare phenomenonmost of the doctors who reported Duntsch had never filed a report before. 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. If you support this mission, we need your help. A Texas neurosurgeon accused of intentionally botching multiple spinal surgeries, resulting in the death of two . [2] The division consists of two tiers within it: Premier Division A and Premier Division B. (Like other state licensing agenciesthe Pharmacy Board, the Nurse Practitioner Boardthe Medical Board operates at a surplus for the state.). According to The Dallas Morning News, he will be up for parole in 2045, when he is 74. To become a neurosurgeon, one typically has to complete over 1000 surgeries in residency, but somehow, reporter Laura Beil discovered that Duntsch only completed 100. In June 2010, following the media circus around the prosecution of the Kermit nurses, they filed a complaint against him. In February 2021, Summers died of an infection directly related to the surgery. Further, both works question Duntsch's perspective. Jurors heard from Duntschs father, mother, brother and a family friend who sought to appeal to the sympathies of the jury. If you were a patient in the Dallas area around this time looking for a spine surgeon, there would have been nothing to suggest that Duntsch was a risky choice. But as in many other areas in Texasbenzene pollution from hydraulic fracturing sites; ammonium nitrate pileups at fertilizer plantsMartins death and Summers paralysis fell into a regulatory no mans land. My whole world crashed, he said. Duntsch, 44, is the first surgeon known to be sentenced to prison for a botched surgery. Photos, illustrations and other art may be available for syndication but must be confirmed. But when I talked to Medical Board spokesperson Megan Goode about this, she said Public Citizen had it wrongthat the board isnt underfunded at all. Wendy Young believed she had finally met her Prince Charming after crossing paths with Christopher Duntsch. Brown had suffered excessive blood loss and a stroke, according to the agency. I think their rationale was, hes a trained neurosurgeon, a combined M.D.-Ph.D., Henderson said. After losing his license, Duntsch filed for bankruptcy and returned to Colorado, where his parents live. In the aftermath of the debacle, the doctors who saw Duntschs handiwork were left to make sense of what happened. The 2022 Calcutta Football League Premier Division was the 124th overall season of the two highest state-level football divisions of West Bengal. Christopher, known as Dr Death, was Jerry's friend and the surgeon who performed the botched operation on him in 2011 Credit: Dallas County Sheriff's office. Create your free profile and get access to exclusive content. He didnt tell them about Baylors internal reports that faulted him in both cases, according to Henderson. For weeks, jurors heard the accounts of patients who had been maimed or paralyzed in bungled surgeries. 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. Before we ask if the board does its job, we have to ask what is the job the Legislature assigned to the board, and what resources the board gets to do that job. In January 2012, he assisted on one of Duntschs surgeries. He sounded impressive, Don said. Dr. Robert Henderson, a Dallas-based orthopedic surgeon who worked to alert authorities about Duntsch, had his own take. Within a month of hiring Kimberly Morgan, who was a nurse practitioner, to help him run his new practice, the pair were sleeping together, according to the podcast. When Duntsch came out, he told Don there had been some complications, and that Kellie would have to stay the night, but that the operation had gone fine. He injured or killed 33 surgical patients between 2011 and 2013. Another suffered a sliced vertebral artery which led to a stroke and later death. Young told D Magazine the incident had simply been a misunderstanding after she had given birth to the couples second son and had asked Duntsch to bring Aiden to the hospital to meet his new brother. Death,which tells a dramatized version of the doctors brief, but deadly, medical career in Texas, including thestruggles he faced in his complicated romantic life as he tried to juggle multiplerelationships. Their fellow physicians had found them committing such offenses as malpractice, sexual assault and drug use. But as investigators took a look back at Christopher's history and consulted with those who knew him, what they discovered was quite disturbing. Please notify us by email that the article will be republished at, The Big Money Behind Greg Abbotts Intervention in Killer Doc Case, Sociopath Surgeon Duntsch Facing Criminal Charges for Botched Surgeries, Sociopath Surgeon Duntsch Arrested for Shoplifting Pants. 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 the fact that the board is conducting an investigation remains confidential until the investigation is over. Though the Texas Medical Board is required by statute to investigate any doctor with more than three malpractice suits, no action was ever taken against the doctor by the state. So while hospital administrators did a deeper background examination, they granted Duntsch temporary privileges. Ellis Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice in Huntsville and will not be eligible for parole until he is 74 years old in 2045. But it wouldnt be the end of the trouble between the pair. The show consists of interviews with his patients and other people close to the case, as well as the full story of Duntsch's crimes. Hed made multiple screw holes on the left everywhere but where he had needed to be. Hospitals can get all of the benefit of an expensive surgeon practicing in their facility and little of the exposure. Wendy Young, portrayed by Molly Griggs in Dr. Death, was the name of Duntsch's real girlfriend. When physical therapy didnt relieve the pain, her family doctor suggested she see a certain neurosurgeonbut the doctor couldnt find that surgeons card, so she suggested Duntsch instead. Duntsch grew up in a middle-class family. Baylor brought in a senior surgeon to fix the damage to Summers spine. They talked about how he doted on his two little boys. Public Citizen concluded that the board moves slowly because its understaffed and underfunded. That veneer is how Duntsch was able to set up a practice in Dallas and obtain surgical privileges at Baylor Scott & White Medical Center in Plano, Texas. And yet they occurred in Duntschs operating rooms over a period of just two years," an article in D Magazine reads. A Medical Board investigation later found that Arafiles assistant was inappropriately prescribing stimulants and diuretics to patients. CHRISTOPHER Duntsch, is infamously known as Dr Death for gross malpractice. In July of that year, Duntsch was indicted by a Dallas County grand jury on five counts of aggravated assault and one count of harming an elderly person. Christopher Daniel Duntsch (born April 3, 1971) [1] is a former American neurosurgeon who has been nicknamed Dr. D. and Dr. Death [2] for gross malpractice resulting in the maiming of several patients' spines and two deaths while working at hospitals in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. The Texas Observer is known for its fiercely independent, uncompromising work which we are pleased to provide to the public at no charge in this space. While that complaint worked its way through the system, another of his patients died of a hydrocodone overdose. Christopher Duntsch, the focus of .css-9cezh6{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-decoration-thickness:0.0625rem;text-decoration-color:inherit;text-underline-offset:0.25rem;color:#E61957;-webkit-transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;}.css-9cezh6:hover{color:#595959;text-decoration-color:border-link-body-hover;}Peacock's true crime series Dr. Death, looked good on paper. A version of this story ran in the September 2013 issue. Death Showrunner Breaks Down Turning Hit Podcast Into New Drama Series On Peacock, (And if you want to dive even deeper into the story, you can also watch the new docuseries, on Peacock, which features interviews with numerous people intimately involved in the case. But Baylor didnt hold him to that. At one point Dr. Henderson sent me a tape of a conversation he had with the main Medical Board investigator assigned to Duntschs case. "After building a flourishing neurosurgery practice, everything suddenly changes when patients entering Dr. Duntsch's operating room for complex but routine spinal surgeries start leaving permanently disabled or dead. They all received the same response Henderson had: Send us what you have, and well get back to you. He was functioning at a first- or second-year neurosurgical resident level but had no apparent insight into how bad his technique was.. The former neurosurgeon is currently serving a life sentence for the maiming of Mary Efurd, one of the . Jodi Smith. "We were told Duntsch was one of the best and smartest neurosurgeons they ever trained, as they went on at length about his strengths," representatives from Baylor Regional Medical Center told Pro Publica in an email. Dallas Magazine states that Duntsch became key in supplying samples to scientists for research. Speaking to Inside Edition, they called him "a snake in the grass," "a monster," "drug addict" and even "a psychopath.". The hospital conducted an initial background check on Duntsch, and he came up clean. Weve seen neurosurgeons get in trouble but not one such as this, in terms of the number of medical errors in such a short time.. During the surgery, Duntsch sliced into one of the arteries running down Summers spine, causing massive bleeding, which he tried to staunch by packing coagulants around the wound. This is what I wanted, she said. Theres no reason to assume another doctor would have advised her differently. Brown was later found unresponsive in her hospital room and staff couldnt contact Duntsch for 90 minutes, according to those records. It's a good questionand one that Dr. Death details, along with the surprisingly difficult fight to revoke his license. He was the eldest of four.They described him as the bright, precocious little boy who had taken care of a sick bird and loved dogs. Don was a lieutenant with the Garland Police Department, and had spent enough time in hospitals to know this delay wasnt a good sign. Death podcast, which inspired the Peacock series. 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. A 27-year-old Young had been working as a stripper in Memphis when she met Duntsch, then 40. Finally the family fired him. By the time the Texas Medical Board revoked his license in June 2013, Duntsch had left two patients dead and four paralyzed in a series of botched surgeries. The procedure can improve stability in the back, according to the Mayo Clinic, and relieve pain. 2021 The Texas Observer. He doesnt care what he has left in his wake.. 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. But Young would never get the happy ending she had envisioned with the doctor. Per The Washington Post, when another surgeon named Dr. Robert Henderson went in to investigate, he was shocked to find spinal hardware left in her soft tissue, a severed nerve root, a nerve with a screw in it and several screw holes on a different area of Mary's spine. For the first time, the board could suspend without a hearing doctors who constituted a continuing threat to the public welfare, i.e., cases where the public couldnt afford to wait for the full board proceedings. Even when the board does sanction a doctor, those sanctions are often lighteven in cases in which the doctor is badly impaired. 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. And in its place is where he had placed the fusion. Dr. Death is a new true-crime series on Peacock about the story of Dr. Christopher Duntsch. CHRISTOPHER Duntsch, is infamously known as Dr Death for gross malpractice. You know, hell call and say goodnight to his boys, um, sometimes hell have bedtime stories and try to be as normal as possible.. On the tape, Henderson demands to know why Duntsch is still practicing. In Duntschs case, we see the weakness of Texas unregulated system of health care, a system built to protect doctors and hospitals. Sign up forOxygen Insiderfor all the best true crime content. Once the case has been put together, the investigators will make a recommendation to the board itself, a group of 12 physicians and seven laypeople appointed by the governor. Im just so grateful from the bottom of my heart, she said. Its more or less satisfied with the way that things work.. And because the story of what he's accused of doing to 33 patients he operated on while . In 2008 one of his patients died of a prescription drug overdose after he had prescribed her a lethal dose of the painkiller Tramadol. Those are the words that Dr. Christopher Duntsch, a Dallas neurosurgeon, wrote to his girlfriend in 2011 in the midst of a two-year period that left 33 of his 38 patients maimed, wounded or . In 2015, Duntsch was charged with five counts of aggravated assault for allegedly mishandling spinal surgeries, and one count of injuring an elderly person, according to the Dallas Morning News. Those were the words that Christopher Duntsch never wanted to hear. On the online doctor-rating site Healthgrades.com, he had 4.5 stars out of five. He had been a neurosurgeon for 40 years and what he saw inside Efurds back shocked him. You're probably asking, How could Duntsch have gotten away with a string of botched surgeries? After the Brown and Efurd debacles in July 2012, the CEO of Dallas Medical Center, Dr. Corazon Hernandez, fired Duntsch and reported him to the Medical Board, according to Henderson. Martins surgery was Duntschs last at Baylor. He told Young that Morgan was his assistant and there was nothing romantic going on between the pair. In this case, as well, the Texas Medical Board took no action, according to Public Citizen. This was a voice for Kellie, said Don Martin, whose wife bled to death after one of those botched surgeries in 2012. But perhaps more terrifying, the show depicts the chilling real-life story of Dallas-area neurosurgeon Christopher Duntsch, who. .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.
Categorias