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. It was then that Christopher decided to switch his career to medicine. Wendy Young had just given birth to their son and lived there with him. Learn more. Then check out the horrifying story of Simon Bramhall, a surgeon who admitted to burning his initials into patients livers. The day after Mary Efurd's surgery, she awoke in excruciating pain and could not turn over or wiggle her toes. One of the patients who suffered disastrous consequences was Jerry Summers, the boyfriend of Megan Kane and a friend of Christopher Duntsch. She had suffered from lower back pain for years and was referred to Duntsch by her pain management doctor. They talked about marriage quickly, and they moved in together within three months. After his license was revoked,Duntsch fled from Texas. The sponge triggered a severe blood-borne infection that caused Glidewell to become septic. Having exhausted his football eligibility, Duntsch decided to switch to a career in medicine. When he began at MISI, Duntsch hired an assistant, Kimberly Morgan, and she started on August 29, 2011. According to his lawyers, Duntsch had not realized how poorly he had performed as a surgeon until he heard the prosecution experts tell the jury about his many blunders on the operating table. The indictments were made four months before the statute of limitations ran out. Ratings for Dr. Christopher D. Duntsch, Inactive. Duntsch, who had been listed as the founder, president & chief science officer, was being sued by the former chief operating officer and was dismissed from his roles and seat on the board. Death'? His father, Donald, was a physical therapist and Christian missionary, and his mother, Susan, was a schoolteacher. Hoyle called the surgery sloppy enough to cancel the remaining four operations he had scheduled with Duntsch and vowed never to work with him again. However, during training for neurosurgery he followed a research path and did fewer operations than most trainees. Passmore can't feel his feet; his chest shakes, his right-hand jitters, he can't run or swim with his kids, he struggles with incontinence, and he has nerve pain that fires through his back. The sponge triggered a severe blood-borne infection that caused Glidewell to become septic. However, St. Jude says there was no such program at the hospital. The board called in veteran neurosurgeon Martin Lazar to review the case. "Dr. Duntsch is one great man." ", "Surgeon who wrote of becoming killer is denied bail reduction", "Elderly couple attends court hoping for justice in Duntsch case", "Who Were The Victims Of Dr. Christopher Duntsch, Who Earned The Ominous Nickname 'Dr. Duntsch earned his undergraduate degree in 1995 and enrolled at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. The night before his surgery, he read online about Kellie Martin's death just months earlier. In November 2011, he was hooked on the prescription opiates that numbed the pain in his lower back. Christopher Duntsch is a former neurosurgeon known by his nickname Dr. Death or Dr. D. The Montana native got his nickname for his malpractice while working at hospitals in Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. The series follows two other surgeons, along with . Duntsch initially attended Millsaps College to play Division III college football, and later transferred to Division I Colorado State University. 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 DallasFort Worth metroplex. among the top 12 percent of medical school graduates in his class named to the elite Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society. Soon after starting Efurd's surgery, Duntsch turned to Kissinger and told him he would be performing a craniotomy on Floella Brown. [16] In 2021, he was profiled on CNBC's American Greed. So, Summers used the only thing he had left, his voice, to scream and yell, even telling the nurses that he and Duntsch had done an eight ball of cocaine the night before his surgery. Duntsch is at the O. Now, one of the several complaints against the . Before working with him, Dr. Hoyle said that he didnt know how to feel about his fellow surgeon. He ran two labs, gained experience writing grants, and earned more than $3 million in funding for research projects. As Burke says in "Dr. Death," "No matter what happens, no matter what somebody does to you or the people you love, all you're gonna get is $250,000. Jeff Cheney later learned that part of his spinal cord had been cut during the operation. (Dallas County Jail via AP) Gift Article. He will not be eligible for parole until 2045, when he will be 74-years-old. A patient who was left barely able to walk and in constant pain after undergoing two botched surgeries at the hands of killer neurosurgeon Christopher Duntsch says he 'guarantees' there are other . He later told Glidewell that it was clear Duntsch had tried to kill him. Over objections from Duntsch's lawyers, prosecutors called many of Duntsch's other patients to the stand to prove that his actions were intentional. She suffered a stroke as a result. Since receiving his life sentence, Dr Death is currently housed in the O.B. Duntsch's next stop was at Dallas Medical Center. by Saul Elbein. At one point, he was only able to eat small bites of food at one time. Glidewell was left with only one vocal cord, permanent damage to his esophagus and partial paralysis on his left side. Leaving on April 20, 2012, with a lawyer-negotiated letter saying, "All areas of concern with regard to Christopher D. Duntsch have been closed. The case highlights the risks of allowing a troubled physician to move to another hospital . [9] Duntsch's defense blamed their client's actions on poor training and lack of oversight by the hospitals. During his surgery, Duntsch didnt installed the necessary hardware to Muses spine and instead had left it floating between the spine and muscle tissue. Around 2006 and 2007, Duntsch began to become unhinged. 2-Dr.Randall Kirby, a hero. Baylor wanted Duntsch operating quickly and often so they could be reimbursed for the monies they had advanced to him. Duntsch did not respond to messages from the hospital for a few hours, then the next day scheduled an elective surgery on Efurd rather than care for Brown. Vaccinated people who catch Covid are reporting unique symptoms - the 4 signs to watch for, Man, 34, charged with murder after woman, 63, killed in house fire as family vow 'you'll never be forgotten', Six dead after private jet crashes and explodes in fireball between two houses sparking forest blaze near golf course. Over the course of two years, Christopher Duntsch operated on 38 patients in the Dallas area. After he arrived in town, he secured a deal with the Baylor Regional Medical Center at Plano and was given surgical rights at the hospital. He wrote grants and secured more than $3 million in funding. When Duntsch finally returned on Monday, he was fired. 1-Christopher Duntsch and then girlfriend, Wendy Young. Passmore had a herniated disc in his lower spine pressing on a nerve causing him pain. Kirby was shocked; he called the owner of University General and warned him that Duntsch would hurt someone, and the hospital would be over. Nicknamed "Dr. Death," the story of Duntsch's egregious medical crimes and the healthcare system that failed so many by allowing him to practice received the podcast treatment in 2018 from Wondery, the team behind "Dirty John.". [4] [19], Despite both of his surgeries at Dallas Medical Center going catastrophically awry, hospital officials did not report him to the NPDB. Christopher Daniel Duntsch was born in Montana on April 3, 1971, and raised alongside his three siblings in an affluent suburb of . He graduated from a top-tier medical school, was running research labs, and completed a residency program for neurosurgery. 11:15 PM on Mar 1, 2014 CST. In 2005, about a third of the way through his residency, department chairman Dr. Jon Robertson appointed Duntsch program director of the school's tissue bank. To stop the bleeding, he packed the space with so much anticoagulant foam that it constricted Summers' spine. By this time, however, Brown was brain dead. He died in 2021 of an infection related to complications from Duntsch's operation. Muse spiraled into opioid addiction that cost him his wife and his job. Duntsch filed a patent for the technology, and he listed himself as one of the inventors even though he had not discovered it. Dr. Henderson thought the operation on Mary Efurd was so botched that Christopher Duntsch had to be an imposter. The nursing staff put down towels to soak it up. His girlfriend, Wendy Young, had a second son in September 2014. Christopher Duntsch Early Life Story, Family Background and Education. Left: Christopher Duntsch in surgery, Right: Christopher Duntschs mugshot. Prosecutors put a high priority on that charge, as it provided the widest sentencing range, with Duntsch facing up to life in prison if convicted. Duntsch is a serial maimer and killer. During surgery, he cut a major vessel in her spinal cord. A Texas neurosurgeon accused of intentionally botching multiple spinal surgeries, resulting in the death of two . Journalists must draw attention to the failures in the U.S. medical and legal systems that allowed Christopher Duntsch, the subject of journalist Laura Beil's well-regarded "Dr. Death" podcast series, to injure dozens of patients, members of an expert panel said at the "10 years after 'Dr. Death': Are patients any safer from bad doctors?" panel at Health Journalism 2022 in Austin. He proved to be Duntsch's last surgery; University General pushed him out soon afterward. No diagnostic imaging studies were ordered, and no reasonable explanation was offered for his condition. Duntsch, once a neurosurgeon, is the focal point of the new streaming Peacock docuseries "Dr. Death." D Magazine gave him the nickname in its reporting in 2016. Duntsch is a former Dallas neurosurgeon who, through . Duntsch's defense blamed their client's actions on poor training and lack of hospital oversight. Those words continue to haunt her, and she's tormented by the knowledge that her endorsement caused others to select Duntsch themselves. He realized he'd seen that hole for three straight days Duntsch hadn't changed his scrubs all week. Create your free profile and get access to exclusive content. It was completely unnecessary, didn't relieve her pain, and only set her up for another needed surgery. Prosecutors put a high priority on that charge, as it provided the widest sentencing range, with Duntsch facing up to life in prison if convicted. D MagazineChristopher Duntsch a.k.a. Duntsch continued to medicate Morguloff with prescription pain killers and ignored the change in his condition. His case is receiving renewed attention in the media. [38][39] On December 10, 2018, the Texas Court of Appeals affirmed Duntsch's conviction by a 21 split decision. I thought he was either really, really good, or hes just really, really arrogant and thought he was good, Hoyle said. [4][49], Last edited on 14 February 2023, at 04:48, University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Baylor Scott & White Medical Center Plano, Texas District and County Attorneys Association, "Dr. Duntsch defense expert: "The only way this happens is the entire system fails the patients", "Plano Doctor Suspended After Two Patient Deaths", "Former Neurosurgeon Faces Life In Prison After Guilty Verdict", "What Was Dr. Christopher Duntsch's Background And Why Were People So Impressed With The Man Later Known As 'Dr. Everything went perfect in there." In 2005, partway through the six-year program, he became the director of the tissue bank. 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 "malice"that is, the hospital knew of the extreme risk and ignored itin credentialing a doctor. Despite all of this, Duntsch was retained by South Hampton when new owners bought it and renamed it University General Hospital. Many readers may recognize the name Christopher Duntsch, a doctor who allegedly was negligent in his practice for years before finally being stripped of his medical license. That's why it really shined down to me," Kissinger said in an interview. He thought surgery might give him some relief and stop his need for drugs. Death'? He didn't wear underwear. [7], Shughart argued that Duntsch should have known he was likely to hurt others unless he changed his approach, and that his failure to learn from his past mistakes demonstrated that his maiming of Efurd was intentional. Duntsch also removed so much bone and muscle tissue from Summers' neck that his head was no longer secure on his body. However, he sewed up Glidewell with the sponge still in place despite others in the operating room warning him about it. Dr. Death was fired before the end of his first week for the damage hed inflicted on Brown and Efurd. Peacock's new grisly drama tells the real-life story of Dallas-area neurosurgeon Christopher Duntsch, who killed or maimed more than 30 patients in the 2010s. Muse woke up in considerable pain, but Duntsch convinced him it was normal. Baylor suspended Duntsch, pictured, for a month. However, things soon went south. The first screening came back diluted with tap water, but a second, taken a few days later, came back clean. Once, he stopped by to pick up some paperwork. Kirby claimed that it looked as if Duntsch had tried to decapitate Glidewell and contended that such a botched surgery has not happened in the United States of America before. All the while, the operating room staff questioned whether Duntsch was putting hardware into Efurd in the right places and noticed he kept drilling and removing screws. Christopher Duntsch a.k.a. 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. According to Megan Kane, an ex-girlfriend of one of Duntschs friends, she saw him eat a paper blotter of LSD and take prescription painkillers on his birthday. "He said the patient died from having an allergic reaction to the anesthesia." Convinced that he was a clear and present danger to the public, they urged the Dallas County district attorney's office to pursue criminal charges. [40][41] On May 8, 2019, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals refused Duntschs petition for discretionary review. When Kirby learned the details, he immediately asked the doctor who referred the case to him about the surgeon: "Is it a guy named Christopher Duntsch?" During his tenure at Baylor Plano, Kimberly Morgan assisted in every surgery with Duntsch. [19], In July 2015, approximately a year and a half after his license was revoked, Duntsch was arrested in Dallas and charged with six felony counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, five counts of aggravated assault causing serious bodily injury, and one count of injury to an elderly person. DiscGenics says its mission is toimprove the lives of those suffering from the debilitating effects of degenerative diseases of the spine. There are many sick people in the world, but Duntsch takes the cake for me. She was left with just one vocal cord. The Judge overseeing this case is GINSBERG, CARL. With Brown still in the ICU, Duntsch took another patient into surgery that morning. ", "Assault trial begins for Dallas surgeon who once wrote of becoming 'cold blooded killer', "The State of Texas vs. Christopher Daniel Dunstch", "Life Sentence Upheld on Appeal For Christopher Duntsch, aka Dr. Death", "What you need to know about 'Dr. I left with him and believed in him and then, you know, he just kind of fell apart.. Page opened a desk drawer and saw a mirror with a pile of cocaine and a rolled-up dollar bill on top. [9][24][19][7] After several days, Kirby was brought in to repair the damage and later described what he found after opening Glidewell back up as the work of a "crazed maniac". Duntsch moved to Denver, Colorado, and went into a downward spiral. The two went back to Duntsch's home and danced under a disco ball he had in his office. One day, he happened to see a fax come in to the medical examiner's office. Since Duntsch's departure was technically voluntary, Baylor Plano was under no obligation to report him to the Texas Medical Board or the National Practitioner Data Bank. When Martin awoke from anesthesia, she was screaming and clawing at her legs which had become patchy and full of purple streaks and spots. In October 2011, she registered articles of incorporation to form Duntsch's practice, the Texas Neurosurgical Institute. It had come from Baylor Regional Medical Center at Plano. She was dancing at a strip club in Memphis, and Duntsch's issues with his business, DiscGenics, grew more severe. An MRI revealed that multiple bone fragments in his spinal canal were compressing and adhering to his S1 nerve and that Duntsch had installed the hardware incorrectly. He added that many board members found it hard to believe that a trained surgeon could be as incompetent as Duntsch appeared to be.[9]. However, he closed Glidewell with the sponge in place despite others in the operating room warning him about it. Unfortunately, it's all too real. In September 2012, Jeff Cheney went to Duntsch to relieve the pain that had moved from his shoulder down to his arm. CHRISTOPHER Duntsch, is infamously known as Dr Death for gross malpractice. is a beautiful and populous city located in Montana U.S. . If you had back pain, and had tried everything else, Dr. Duntsch could give you the spine surgery that would take your pain away. As those watching the show know, Christopher was dubbed "Dr. Death" in D Magazine . Dallas Magazine states that Duntsch became key in supplying samples to scientists for research. Why do Slipknot wear masks and what do they look like without? Now, a podcast called Dr. Death is breaking down the deranged surgeon's criminal acts and shows how drug abuse and blinding overconfidence led to big trouble for the patients who found themselves underneath the spiraling doctor's knife.. When Henderson opened the freshly made incisions on her, he was appalled. [4], Upon applying for work, he looked extremely qualified on paper: he had spent a total of fifteen years in training (medical school, residency and fellowship), and his curriculum vitae was twelve single-spaced pages. When Jerry Summers woke up, he couldn't move his arms or legs. Plans start at $4.99/month. I am sorry in advance that this blog post is so long. [8] Duntsch returned home to attend Memphis State University (now the University of Memphis). 0:05. Fennell is in constant pain, and it took several months of rehabilitation before he could begin to walk with a cane. Morguloff sought a second opinion on his excruciating pain from Dr. Michael Desaloms. When other doctors discovered the sponge, Duntsch refused to return to help remove it. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott filed a motion to intervene in the suits to defend Baylor Plano, citing the Texas legislature's 2003 statute that placed a medical malpractice cap of $250,000, and removed the term "gross negligence" from the definition of legal malice. For 33 patients of Texas neurosurgeon Christopher Duntsch, it was a reality. Morgan didn't follow Duntsch after he left, however. Morguloff had become addicted to the pain killers being prescribed to him by this time. This time on 53-year-old Mary Efurd. To top it all off, he was operating on the wrong portion of her back. Former teammates later said that, while Duntsch trained hard, he lacked talent at the game. Christopher Duntsch was born in Montana on April 3, 1971. Over this period, Duntsch performed back surgeries that left his patients in a worse condition, paralyzed, or deceased. Anatomy of a Tragedy. He Was Also His Victim. They created a method for culturing the stem cells of intervertebral discs outside of the body. "It's a miracle," she said in the infomercial later promoted on his website. "As his victims pile up, two fellow physicians and Dallas prosecutor Michelle Shughart set out to stop him.". Christopher Duntsch, known as "Dr. Death" tried to explain himself in rambling emails, but he only made things worse for his criminal case. Fennell required months of rehabilitation to be able to walk with a cane, and was left unable to walk for more than 30 feet or stand for more than a few minutes without having to sit down again. [18] He damaged patient Philip Mayfield's spinal cord, drilling into it and leaving him partially paralyzed from the neck down. Dallas-based surgeon Christopher Duntsch was also the subject of a Wondery podcast titled "Dr. Death." (Dallas County Jail) The indictment accused Duntsch of wide-ranging malpractice, including . During this time, he ran two successful labs and raised millions of dollars in grant funding. He stalled at first, telling administrators he got lost on the way to the lab. [6], Christopher Duntsch was born in Montana and spent most of his youth in Memphis, Tennessee. According to D Magazine, a doctor at the hospital where Duntsch worked said that Duntsch had been sent to an impaired physician program after he refused to take a drug test. He's serving a life sentence for gross malpractice that resulted in two direct fatalities and the maiming of more than 30 neurosurgery patients, as told by Laura Beil, the journalist who hosts the Dr. Death podcast, on which the eponymous show is based. A CT scan would later reveal that Efurds nerve root had been amputated, there were several screw holes nowhere near where they were supposed to be, and one screw had been lodged in another nerve root. Over the course of 18-months, the nefarious ex-surgeon performed a spree of botched . WFAA-TVChristopher Duntsch a.k.a. Shughart countered that the 2011 email, sent after his first surgeries went wrong, proved that Duntsch knew his actions were intentional. [3], Duntsch was accused of injuring 33 out of 38 patients in less than two years before his license was revoked by the Texas Medical Board. He later recalled that he read about Martin's death on the day before the surgery, but Duntsch cursed him out when he called to ask about it. After interviewing dozens of Duntsch's patients and their survivors, prosecutors concluded that Duntsch's actions were indeed criminal, and nothing short of imprisonment would prevent him from practicing medicine again. Christopher Duntsch was born in Montana and spent most of his youth in Memphis, Tennessee. Duntsch focused on his research for a while but was recruited from Memphis to join the Minimally Invasive Spine Institute in North Dallas in the summer of 2011. Christopher Duntsch, once a supremely confident neurosurgeon with a solid rsum and a wealth of potential, fled town in disgrace last year under a scalding cascade . Young said that Morgan visited often. Duntsch stuffed Glidewell's throat with a surgical sponge to attempt to stop the bleeding. Although she didn't think much of it and assumed Morgan was helping with research. For instance, he came to work wearing the same tattered scrubs for three days in a row. Unfortunately, when Morguloff woke up, he began to experience continuous pain, paresthesia, and loss of sensation in his left leg. Christopher Daniel Duntsch was born in Montana on April 3, 1971, and raised alongside his three siblings in an affluent suburb of Memphis, Tennessee. Dr. Rimlawi called Baylor Plano and advised them against continuing a relationship with Christopher Duntsch, but this fell to deaf ears. For the last three days, jurors listened to testimony in the . Death.. When he arrived, Nurse Kyle Kissinger spotted a hole in Duntsch's scrubs. In 2014, he developed syringomyelia, a painful condition that causes fluid-filled cysts on the spinal cord. Duntsch also appears in no yearbooks during the time in which he says he earned his Ph.D. executive producer explains how Christopher Duntsch could have avoided prison. Death'? His pain management specialist advised against an operation but referred him to a neurosurgeon named Christopher Duntsch. [7], Henderson later recalled wondering if Duntsch was an impostor; he could not believe that a real surgeon would botch Efurd's surgery so badly. Jodi Smith. Kissinger also noticed that Duntsch had pinpoint pupils and hardly seemed to blink. 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 . They also believed that the charge would be easy to prove in court; Duntsch had been told repeatedly that he was not placing the hardware in the correct position, and fluoroscopy images from Efurd's surgery proved this. [19][16] Kirby claimed that it looked as if Duntsch had tried to decapitate Glidewell and contended that such a botched surgery "has not happened in the United States of America" before.
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