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I thought, this couldnt have happened. 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. We may earn commission from links on this page, but we only recommend products we back. A dissection of an esophagus led to significant blood loss in one patient. Their romance moved. He wrote grants and secured more than $3 million in funding. Duntsch was arrested in July 2015. 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. 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. They talked about how he doted on his two little boys. It is unclear what she has been up to since Duntsch's life imprisonment sentence. Anatomy of a Tragedy. The four-part docuseries features old footage and new interviews to tell more of the story about the neurosurgeon who was sentenced to prison after maiming or killing more than 30 patients. Maybe, he sighed, we should have gotten a second opinion.. The surgery, he said, beaming into the camera, was a resounding success. 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. They just cant comprehend that an M.D.-Ph.D. neurosurgeon could do what Christopher Duntsch was doing. He seemed to have a hard time moving organs and blood vessels out of the way, according to Kirby. Because he had no conscience. Duntsch appealed his sentence and lost the appeal in 2018. 2023 . In 2008 one of his patients died of a prescription drug overdose after he had prescribed her a lethal dose of the painkiller Tramadol. 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. After a few calls to various Dallas-area medical societies, someone suggested he call the Medical Board. In one, Duntsch tells the story, over stock footage of an operation, of a taxing back surgery he performed on an older woman. In 2018, she was living in Springtown with her new boyfriends parents and had just given birth to a third child she shares with her newpartner. Many of his patients suffered severe spinal cord damage, resulting in paralysis and pain severe enough to render painkillers ineffective. She alsoalleged tothe magazine that he broke into her apartment, showing up one day covered in blood. Even now, Young told American Greed she still hears from Duntsch when he calls to talk to their sons. For the next several months, he was in constant pain, according to Mike Lyons, his attorney. "He has a job inside the prison. 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. Goals scored. Because he owed people a lot of money. Christopher Duntsch was just a regular guy who became Dr. Death after he decided to be a neurosurgeon. In a specialized field like neurosurgery, that means further months of delay. Texas law states that hospitals are liable for damages caused by doctors in their facilities only if the plaintiff can prove that the hospital acted with malicethat is, the hospital knew of extreme risk and ignored itin credentialing a doctor. 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. At the time, Duntsch had been fielding offers in Dallas, SanDiegoand New York from medical centers eager to have a neurosurgeon with hisseeminglyimpressive resume on staff. Dr. Duntsch's surviving surgery patients suffered a range of debilitating conditions, which ProPublica details: Permanent nerve damage, paralysis, loss of vocal cords. The investigator, Maria Lopez, lets him yell. He has a job inside the prison. Young was soon pregnantbut Duntsch had already developed a wandering eye. 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. They all received the same response Henderson had: Send us what you have, and well get back to you. And because the story of what he's accused of doing to 33 patients he operated on while . Dallas Magazine states that Duntsch became key in supplying samples to scientists for research. After Christopher performed a spinal surgery on Mary in 2012, Mary suffered crippling pain afterward. The point isnt that all doctors are dangerous, or even that any more than a tiny minority are. In doing so, hospitals preserved Duntsch's reputation. He was a genius, Ellison said,adding that Morgan initially felt she had found the one.. My whole world crashed, he said. A man who was a victim of other people's bad work and bad behavior," he told Newsweek. Because of greed. Dr Deathis a new limited series about the rise and fall of Duntsch. She said Duntsch came highly recommended. The protections make some sense. ), Photo: They shouldnt ever happen in someones entire career. Create your free profile and get access to exclusive content. Since receiving his life sentence, Dr Death is currently housed in the O.B. Its a completely egregious case, Leigh Hopper, then head of communications for the Texas Medical Board, told The Dallas Morning News in June. 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. 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. Until the day of the suspension, if you had looked Duntsch up on the Texas Medical Board website, you would have found him a physician in good standing. None of this hurt his career. I was very independent and I had to become dependent on others for transportation, for my meals, for a lot of things.". Texas number of license applications has grown every year since 2003, when medical malpractice damage caps passed. The. Hospitals can get all of the benefit of an expensive surgeon practicing in their facility and little of the exposure. He saw himself as a brilliant doctor and a brilliant surgeon. Coverage of the latest true crime stories and famous cases explained, as well as the best TV shows, movies and podcasts in the genre. When she responds, shes quiet. Because investigations are confidential, Duntschs public record with the Texas Medical Board remained clean. When Summers woke up he couldnt move his arms or legs. He claimed to work as a bioscience consultant and researcher, and maintained his innocence. 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.. He explained the disturbing visit by saying he had been attacked by an investigator for an attorney hired by one of his patients, although that account was never verified. CHRISTOPHER Duntsch, is infamously known as Dr Death for gross malpractice. In February of 2017, Christopher was sentenced to life in prison. Though a hospital peer review took this doctors privileges in 2006, he continued to practice for three more years until he retired, according to federal records. 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. Duntsch, an engaging and fast-talking son of missionaries, came to North Texas with uncommon credentials. The board suspended his license but then immediately stayed the suspension and gave him probation. 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. Neither hospital would talk about Duntsch for this story. He became a quadriplegic, and in February 2021, died from an infection connected to that very surgery one decade prior, per Local 24 News. In telling the story of Duntsch, both the series and podcast reveal how a flawed system allowed him to operate for so long. After his wife died, Don Martin found himself at a loss. Jodi Smith. 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. He said his son called him upset after several of the botched surgeries. Speaking to Inside Edition, they called him "a snake in the grass," "a monster," "drug addict" and even "a psychopath.". Morgan later secured a temporary protective order against him in April 2012 after telling authorities that Duntsch had come to her apartment at 2 a.m. and banged on her window, according to the podcast. Duntsch hired Morgan as his assistant while he was still with the Minimally Invasive Spine Institute in August of 2011. This was the time when Dr. Christopher Duntsch started to turn into Dr. Death. Not only shouldnt he be operating, he shouldnt be making any decisions about treatment or pathology. It had no effect whatsoever.. In the second, while doing a cervical fusion on a woman named Floella Brown, Duntsch removed a bone from an area that was not required by any clinical or anatomical standards, resulting in injury to the vertebral artery, according to Texas Medical Board records. Competing on home soil, Zverev lost 7-6 (7/ . Kirby, the surgeon from Baylor, was philosophical. 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.". Every time a doctor loses clinical privileges at a hospital, or has them suspended, hospitals are required by law to notify the National Practitioner Databank. One might think that if a doctor had paralyzed one patient and had another die in the course of a month, it would be someones job to figure out why. 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. "When asked about Dr. Duntschs weaknesses or areas for improvement, the supervising physician communicated that the only weakness Duntsch had was that he took on too many tasks for one person.". To suspend a license, as one Medical Board staffer explained, there has to be enough evidence to prove a pattern. And the words that his patients and their families desperately wanted to hear. His report was damning. 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. Those were the words that Christopher Duntsch never wanted to hear. 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. Another suffered a sliced vertebral artery which led to a stroke and later death. His father, Don Duntsch, spoke with pride about how his son had once been one of the top authorities on stem cells and had done ground-breaking cancer research. The only entity that could stop Duntsch from seeing more patients was the Texas Medical Board. This defendant single-handedly ruined their lives, and he gave each of them a life of pain, prosecutor Michelle Shughart told jurors in closing statements. 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. It is said to be rare for a physician to be indicted on several counts of aggravated assault stemming from events in an operating room. Henderson went in to remove it. Kellie Martin and her husband, Don, went to see Duntsch, who suggested a procedure called a microlaminectomy, in which part of the spine is removed to relieve pressure on the nerves. She would be present during the spinal . His mistakes were obvious and well-documented. As they dressed for surgery, Duntsch boasted to Kirby that he was the best neurosurgeon in Dallas. He chose Dallas after learning that Young had family near thecityand she offered to go with him. So why didnt he stop? Shughart said. But it wouldnt be the end of the trouble between the pair. Instead, Duntsch would find himself behind bars for life after botching more than 30 surgeriesresulting in the death of two patients and earning him the nickname Dr. 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." I was very independent and I had to become dependent on others for transportation, for my meals, for a lot of things," she said. Here's All That Happened to the Real Christopher Duntsch, The Best Peacock Shows to Start Streaming Now, Leann Rimes Shares Video Montage for Anniversary. Yet Arafiles didnt surrender his license until November 2011, after he had been convicted of a felony. "Dr. Death" and the companion docuseries "Dr. Death: The Undoctored Story" are both available to stream on Peacock now. "I think all of us will be thinking about things like this, and hopefully there will be some tighter controls, more accountability in a lot of areas so something like this wont happen again. Kirby said Duntsch had problems at nearly every step of the operation. But more than anything, we don't get to know Christopher Duntsch. 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. The patients mother complained to the Medical Board. Death.. 300 (2.48 per match) 2021. At trial, prosecutors opted only to pursue the harming an elderly person charge connected to his failed surgery on MaryEfurd; however, other victims would also testify at trial. Oxygen Insider is your all-access pass to never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more. It was supposed to be a simple procedure, which is, perhaps, why Baylor didnt put anyone in the operating room to supervise Duntsch. But a second opinion wouldnt have helped. Over this period, Duntsch performed back surgeries that left his patients in a worse condition, paralyzed, or deceased. Hewould go on to have another child with Youngwho finally split from the struggling doctor by 2014. He was smart. Up until 2003, medical care in Texas was regulated by a system of checks. Ill do some crying. It takes the Texas Medical Board an average of nine months to resolve complaints. 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 . Photos, illustrations and other art may be available for syndication but must be confirmed. She was 55 and had been experiencing persistent back pain after a fall at home. Actually, hit the mute button, toothe sounds of botched surgeries are gruesome, made more horrifying knowing they're taken from real life. He waited until they told him his wife had been sent to the intensive care unit. 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. Christopher Duntsch, 46, was initially charged with five counts of aggravated assault causing serious bodily injury and one count of injuring an elderly person, 1 but the trial focused on the last charge, which alleged that Duntsch deliberately harmed Mary Efurd, then aged 72, in a 2012 operation that left her in a wheelchair. "I think its going to be like a floodgate thats going to really open, crying. Hes been devastated, Don Duntsch said. 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. The board forbade Arafiles to supervise nurses or physician assistants anymore. He nicked the patients vertebral artery, causing the space he was working in to fill with blood. Per Bustle, Christopher is currently incarcerated at O.B. Only their consciences, and those of their fellow doctors, limit them. 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. Prince Charming, Im gonna change your life, Wendy Young said of the promising start to her romance with Christopher Duntsch. A version of this story ran in the September 2013 issue. The one-time neurosurgeon was sentenced by the 12-member jury to spend the remainder of his life behind bars Monday afternoon. It's a good questionand one that Dr. Death details, along with the surprisingly difficult fight to revoke his license. (And the National Practitioner Databank doesnt make doctors names public, so we dont know who they are.) 121. .css-1omz5nv{background-color:#E61957;border-radius:50rem;color:#000;display:inline-block;font-family:Gilroy,Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:bold;letter-spacing:0.02em;line-height:1.3;padding:0.625rem 1.25rem;text-align:center;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;text-decoration-color:inherit;text-decoration-thickness:0.0625rem;text-transform:uppercase;text-underline-offset:0.25rem;-webkit-transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;width:auto;}@media(max-width: 48rem){.css-1omz5nv{min-width:7.25rem;}}@media(min-width: 48rem){.css-1omz5nv{min-width:11.25rem;}}.css-1omz5nv:focus-visible{outline-color:body-cta-btn-link-focus;}.css-1omz5nv:hover{color:#fff;text-decoration-color:border-link-body-hover;background-color:#9D002F;}Watch Dr. Death. 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. Why didnt he stop? Over the next year, the Medical Board would receive at least six more complaints from doctors who had seen Duntschs work up close. According to The Dallas Morning News, he will be up for parole in 2045, when he is 74. Anton Floquet/NBCUniversal. Duntsch, who is now 50, is serving time in a Texas prison. As a result, one patient died from a massive blood lost. 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. Sign up forOxygen Insiderfor all the best true crime content. According to Baylor, Duntsch had clinical privileges when he resigned. We talked about marriage pretty quickly. But in the past 10 years, a series of conservative reforms have severely limited patients options for holding doctors and hospitals accountable for bad care. Duntsch was once an up and coming neurosurgeon. Her spine was pockmarked with screw holes, and a screw had been lodged in another nerve root near the bottom of her spine," D Magazine describes. While that complaint worked its way through the system, another of his patients died of a hydrocodone overdose. The pair met in 2011 at a Memphis bar, known as the Beauty Shop, according toa 2016D Magazineprofile of Duntschs scandalous medical career. Was it that he was unqualified and completely unaware of regional anatomy? 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. Get all your true crime news from Oxygen. We may earn commission from links on this page, but we only recommend products we back. But its more complicated than that. But the board is limited in its ability to investigate malpractice. His performance, Kirby wrote, was pathetic . You know in the beginning he talked about marriage. Deathand the intense media scrutiny surrounding the shocking case would drive Young out of Dallas with the couples two sons. He has nothing. 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. He went to the operating room and asked to speak to the doctor. 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. First, the Medical Board staff has to screen every complaint and has 45 days to decide whether the agency will act on it. That July, Duntsch was firing off panicked emails to his business partners at 4 am. "Based on a hit podcast and inspired by the terrifying true story of Dr. Christopher Duntsch, a young and charismatic star in the Texas medical community," Peacock explains about the series. 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. In this case, as well, the Texas Medical Board took no action, according to Public Citizen. When the Medical Board suspended Duntschs license, the agencys spokespeople too seemed shocked. By the time she was transferred to UT Southwestern Medical Center later that day, she was brain dead. Another woman named Megan Kane claimed he ate a paper blotter of LSD and took prescription painkillers in the early 2000s on his birthday. Get our latest in-depth reporting straight to your inbox. Three weeks later, Duntsch performed a spinal fusion on Jerry Summers, a childhood friend. Shes also worked as a social editor for House Beautiful and had previous writing stints at Redbook,CosmopolitanandSeventeen. Duntsch, 44, is the first surgeon known to be sentenced to prison for a botched surgery. His father was a missionary and physical therapist and his mother was a school teacher. My record is excellent," he told The Dallas Morning News in 2015. Jurors heard from Duntschs father, mother, brother and a family friend who sought to appeal to the sympathies of the jury. According to his ex-girlfriend Wendy Young (played by Mollie Griggs in the show), Duntsch is in touch with his two sons. Of the three in the academy, viz. Christopher Duntsch, the focus of Peacock's true crime series Dr. Death, looked good on paper. 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. And a system in which theres no way to know for sure if your doctor is dangerous. Kimberly Morgan is the former assistant and ex-girlfriend of Christopher Duntsch, nicknamed Dr Death. The process for resolving complaints is slow and painstaking, set up in statute to guarantee doctors the maximum legal protection. I dont know what it is," she said on CNBC's American Greed. He felt confident. This is an almost impossible standard to meet, and it has left hospitals immune to the actions of whatever doctors they bring on. Brown was later found unresponsive in her hospital room and staff couldnt contact Duntsch for 90 minutes, according to those records. CHRISTOPHER Duntsch, is infamously known as Dr Death for gross malpractice. Wendy Young believed she had finally met her Prince Charming after crossing paths with Christopher Duntsch. And Ill reflect back on how difficult those first months were afterwards. But Baylor didnt hold him to that. In the two years he practiced as a spine surgeon across four Dallas institutions, Duntsch operated on 37 people. He was convicted of injury to an elderly person in the 2012 surgery on Mary Efurd that put her in a. One patient had a stroke following a chelation therapy. Instead, she awoke in searing pain, which she likened to child birth, per D Magazine. In July 2012, four months after Kellie Martins death, Duntsch applied for surgical privileges at Dallas Medical Center. Upon his return, Duntsch performed surgery on a patient named Kellie Martinand she bled to death. 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. He had no idea what he was doing. She even alleged that after a drug-fueled night of partying, she watched as Christopher put on his lab coat "to make the rounds the next morning.". I left with him and believed in him and then, you know, he just kind of fell apart.. He was functioning at a first- or second-year neurosurgical resident level but had no apparent insight into how bad his technique was.. For example, when Duntsch left Baylor Regional Medical Center at Plano, the hospital provided a letter confirming there had been no "summary or administrative restrictions or suspensions," despite the fact that Duntsch had been suspended for 30 days following Summers's surgery. He said he had no doubt that his son cared about his patients. So while hospital administrators did a deeper background examination, they granted Duntsch temporary privileges. It was a minimally invasive surgery, Kirby said, that killed Kellie Martin. 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. Every patient that I interviewed told me that one of the first things Dr. Duntsch would tell them when they initially met was that he was the best surgeon in Dallas," Henderson, played by Alec Baldwin in the show, told People. 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. The temporary suspension was a power the Legislature gave the board in 2003. Sometimes we know that someones bad, but when it comes to taking them to a hearing and proving it to where we can actually do some disciplinary action, it takes time of gathering evidence. and a Ph.D. from a top-tier medical school, a decade of experience, and a central role in a pioneering stem-cell treatment. A charismatic, charming monster but still a monster but he saw himself as the hero of his own story. In December 2012, he performed a cervical fusion at Legacy Surgery Center of Frisco that left his patient with paralyzed vocal cordsan unheard-of complication. When he arrived in Dallas in late 2010, Duntsch's resume spoke of a skilled neurosurgeon: An M.D. .css-ssumvd{display:block;font-family:Gilroy,Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif;font-size:1.0625rem;font-weight:bold;line-height:1.25;margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}@media (any-hover: hover){.css-ssumvd:hover{color:link-hover;}}@media(min-width: 40.625rem){.css-ssumvd{letter-spacing:0rem;margin-top:0.9375rem;}}Gayle King Is Showcasing Women Making Waves, Your Complete Guide to the Bridgerton Family, Jada Pinkett Smiths Red Table Talk Is Canceled, Oprah Wishes Carol Burnett a Happy 90th Birthday, Oprah and Mindy Kaling Are Producing a TV Show, Oprah and Michelle Obama Have a Netflix Special, Gayle Kings Pop Culture Must-See List for April, What We Know About The Little Mermaid Remake, Dr. Death Tells the Horrifying True Story of Christopher Duntsch, The True Story that Inspired Season 2 Dirty John, 20 True-Crime Podcasts You Should Be Listening To, Gayle King Is Showcasing Women Making Waves, email he wrote to former assistant Kimberly Morgan. By Jill Sederstrom & Leah Carroll Joshua Jackson On Role Of Surgeon, Christopher Duntsch, In Peacock's "Dr. Death" Series Now Playing Digital Original