Trusty was never told she was participating in an infomercial and believed Duntsch had been selected as the top neurosurgeon in Dallas and was participating in a video about the award. Despite all of this, Duntsch was retained by South Hampton when new owners bought it and renamed it University General Hospital. During his short tenure, he spent little time in the operating room. CHRISTOPHER Duntsch, is infamously known as Dr Death for gross malpractice. Out of his 38 surgeries, only three had no complications. [4], After 13 days of trial, the jury needed only four hours to convict him for the maiming of Efurd. Now, one of the several complaints against the . 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 . Evil Lives Here: Shadows Of Death is investigating the numerous crimes of former neurosurgeon Christopher Duntsch, who was nicknamed Dr. Death after causing pain, suffering, and even death to multiple patients over the course of two years. I dont know if hes there to harm me or what his true intentions were, Wendy Young said of the harrowing alleged encounter with Christopher Duntsch. In his deposition, Summers admitted he made up the pre-surgery cocaine binge because he felt Duntsch had abandoned him, as both his doctor and his friend. [9][10], Duntsch had severed Brown's vertebral artery, and refused to abort despite the massive blood loss. Watch the trailer for Dr . A Texas jury found Christopher Duntsch guilty Feb. 14 of maiming patients who had turned to him for surgery to resolve debilitating injuries. The staff told Duntsch that Brown, his patient from the day before, was in critical condition. According to D Magazine, Duntsch did so well in medical school that he was allowed to join the prestigiousAlpha Omega Medical Honor Society. Cheney recalled wondering why a neurosurgeon with such outstanding credentials would be operating at a lower-tiered hospital on the way to his surgery. However, part of the problem was proving that Duntsch's actions were willful as defined by Texas law. He is a graduate of Evangelical Christian School in the Cordova suburb of Memphis, where he starred in football.[7]. Death. 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. As a result of the 2017 trial, Duntsch was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. In his first surgery after his suspension lifted, he nicked the vertebral artery of Kellie Martin, a 55-year-old Garland woman. My experience with this doctor has been great. From 2011 to 2013, dozens of patients in the Dallas area woke up after their surgeries with horrible pain, numbness and, paralysis. [7] He lasted for less than a week before administrators pulled his privileges after the death of a patient, Floella Brown, and the maiming of another, Mary Efurd. A few days later, he took the test and passed. One of the patients who suffered disastrous consequences was Jerry Summers, the boyfriend of Megan Kane and a friend of Christopher Duntsch. Part of the problem was being able to prove that Duntsch's actions were willful as defined by Texas law. Floella Brown went under Dr. Deaths knife in July 2012 and shortly after her surgery, she suffered a massive stroke caused by Duntsch slicing her vertebral artery during surgery. Lazar was scathingly critical of Duntsch's work. Jodi Smith. Glidewell was left with only one vocal cord, permanent damage to his esophagus and partial paralysis on his left side. 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.. Just weeks after permanently maiming Morguloff, Dr. Duntsch operated on his lifelong friend and roommate, Jerry Summers. It stars Joshua Jackson as Duntsch, Alec Baldwin as Robert Henderson, Christian Slater as Randall Kirby and AnnaSophia Robb as Michelle Shughart. Dallas Magazine states that Duntsch became key in supplying samples to scientists for research. Muse spiraled into opioid addiction that cost him his wife and his job. His mother, Susan, was a school teacher. D Magazine gave him the nickname in . Christopher Daniel Duntsch was born in Montana on April 3, 1971, and raised alongside his three siblings in an affluent suburb of . He was held in the Dallas County jail for almost two years until the case went to trial in 2017. Prosecutors sought a sentence long enough to ensure that Duntsch would never be able to practice medicine again. Young said that Morgan visited often. Duntsch is the first physician sentenced to life in prison for his actions while practicing medicine. 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. But when he awoke and was experiencing extreme pain, Dr. Duntsch said that surgery had been a success and there had been no complications. The appalling actions of the rogue surgeon and their repercussions on his unsuspecting patients were . [7], While in Memphis, Duntsch began a long-term relationship with Wendy Renee Young. This meant Summers could still feel pain, but was unable to move from the neck down. Duntsch's next stop was at Dallas Medical Center. The explanation was enough to satisfy Muse. She was left with just one vocal cord. The nursing staff put down towels to soak it up. ", "Greg Abbott Enters Fray in Lawsuits Involving "Sociopath" Doctor", "Abbott sides with Baylor hospital in neurosurgeon lawsuit", "Who Are Robert Henderson And Randall Kirby, The Surgeons Who Tried To Stop 'Dr. 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. Philip is one of more than 30 people maimed by Dr. Christopher Duntsch, nicknamed Dr. Death by the media. "It's on the butt cheek of his scrubs. After several more months of botched surgeries, Duntsch finally lost his surgical privileges altogether in June 2013 after two physicians complained to the Texas Medical Board. The series follows two other surgeons, along with . I thought he was either really, really good, or hes just really, really arrogant and thought he was good, Hoyle said. [48], In 2019, Duntsch was the focus of the premiere episode of License to Kill, Oxygen's series on criminal medical professionals. 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 intense rehab and his determination, eventually, he was able to use a walker and cane to mobilize himself. Trusty would later find out there was no award and it had just been a paid advertisement. Donald Duntsch was a gridiron football standout in Montana, and . They argued that Duntsch was motivated to continue operating because the lucrative salary of a neurosurgeon would solve his mounting financial problems. A neurosurgery expert for Duntsch's defense team himself said, "The conditions which created Dr. Duntsch still exist, thereby making it possible for another to come along.". Henderson sent Duntsch's picture to the University of Tennessee to determine whether he actually had a degree from that institution and received confirmation that Duntsch, in fact, did. In a long running series of complaints, a Texas doctor has been found guilty of a felony in one medical malpractice case. Duntsch is a former Dallas neurosurgeon who, through . To stop the bleeding, he packed the space with so much anticoagulant foam that it constricted Summers' spine. Following his blunders, Duntsch resigned from Baylor Plano in April 2012 before they could fire him. They didn't have enough evidence to stop him because he hadn't done anything wrong yet. The Legislature has also made suing hospitals difficult. Christopher was raised along with his three younger siblings in a wealthy suburb in Memphis, Tennessee. [8] Duntsch returned home to attend Memphis State University (now the University of Memphis). His father, Donald, was a physical therapist and Christian missionary. Kirby arrived and transferred Glidewell to a top-tier hospital to perform an emergency operation to remove the sponge. Officers said he was driving on the left side of the road with two flat tires. Under heavy lobbying from Kirby and Henderson, the Texas Medical Board suspended Duntsch's license on June 26, 2013. Dhruv Trivedi. Duntsch operated and flew out to Las Vegas without securing a call physician. 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. He later told Glidewell that it was clear Duntsch had tried to kill him. He performed only one surgery with the Minimally Invasive Spine Institute. Even though he lived in Colorado, he returned to Dallas to see his two sons. During a deposition, Megan Krane recalled Duntsch eating a paper blotter of LSD and taking prescription painkillers on his birthday. [38], Duntsch is housed at the O. During his surgery, Duntsch didnt installed the necessary hardware to Muses spine and instead had left it floating between the spine and muscle tissue. The Legislature not only puts the burden of proof on the plaintiff instead of the defendant in medical malpractice cases, but it also allows hospitals to keep information about doctors confidential. [33][34] The indictments were made four months before the statute of limitations were to run out. Where is Kim Morgan Now? Kenneth Fennell, the first patient Duntsch operated on at Baylor Plano, was left with chronic pain after Duntsch operated on the wrong part of his back. He was put on probation for three weeks and told to stick to relatively minor procedures when he returned. He Was Also His Victim. It's hard to find a lawyer willing to jump through these hoops no matter how negligent the doctor was, because Texas limits non-economic damages in most cases to $250,000 per doctor. Although he wasn't a talented athlete, he trained for hours on his own and made it as a linebacker on his high school football team at Evangelical Christian School in Memphis. 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. He said even a person with the most basic sense of human anatomy would know they were operating in the wrong area. Duntsch is at the O. 3-Jeff Glidewell, another victim of Duntsch's. 4-Michelle Shugart, the woman who brought this all to fruition . 2-Dr.Randall Kirby, a hero. It was Duntsch, babbling about his family being in danger. [7] He likened what he found when he opened Efurd up to the results of a child playing with Tinkertoys or an erector set. During his tenure at Baylor Plano, Kimberly Morgan assisted in every surgery with Duntsch. They created a method for culturing the stem cells of intervertebral discs outside of the body. Moving made sense for both of them. She suffered a stroke as a result. Wendy Renee Young was romantically involved with Texas physician Christopher Duntsch, who became known as "Dr . An investigator by trade and nature, Passmore started digging into Dr. Christopher Duntsch. In April 2015, Duntsch was arrested again for shoplifting $887 worth of merchandise from a Dallas Walmart. The databank was established in 1990 and tracks malpractice payouts and adverse actions against doctors, such as being fired, banned from Medicare, handed a lengthy suspension, or having their license suspended or revoked. Donald Duntsch was a gridiron football standout in Montana, and Christopher was determined to follow in those footsteps. The case status is Disposed - Other Disposed. [44] The Dallas County district attorney's office called it "a historic case with respect to prosecuting a doctor who had done wrong during surgery. He was then brought on board at the Dallas Medical Center where he continued his carnage. ", You know in the beginning he talked about marriage. His very first operation at the hospital would once again turn deadly. To see the rest of Dr. Christopher Duntsch's murder and maiming spree, and the fight to stop him, you'll need to purchase Peacock premium. His first and only surgery with MISI was on a Thursday in September 2011 at Baylor Plano. The charismatic neurosurgeon was actually a successful researcher before he starting killing people in the operating . Then check out the horrifying story of Simon Bramhall, a surgeon who admitted to burning his initials into patients livers. Soon afterward, he severely maimed Jeff Glidewell after mistaking part of his neck muscle for a tumor during a routine cervical fusion, severing one of his vocal cords, cutting a hole in his esophagus and slicing an artery. His father was a missionary and physical therapist and his mother was a school teacher. However, St. Jude says there was no such program at the hospital. Shughart countered that the 2011 email, sent after his first surgeries went wrong, proved that Duntsch knew his actions were intentional. Duntsch was suspected of having used cocaine the night before the operation. Morguloff had become addicted to the pain killers being prescribed to him by this time. It was determined during the repair surgery that Dr. Duntsch had not even been operating on the correct part of Jeff Glidewell's spine. His CV also conveyed he earned a Ph.D. in microbiology from St. Jude Children's Research Hospitals, graduating summa cum laude. She was moved to the ICU and died due to blood loss. Finally, Dr. Kirby received a call from Hassan Chahadeh. In 2014, he developed syringomyelia, a painful condition that causes fluid-filled cysts on the spinal cord. She bled so much that blood was saturating the blue draping around her body and dripping onto the floor. Over this period, Duntsch performed back surgeries that left his patients in a worse condition, paralyzed, or deceased. He avoided it and disappeared for several days. She was dancing at a strip club in Memphis, and Duntsch's issues with his business, DiscGenics, grew more severe. Christopher Duntsch was just a regular guy who became Dr. Death after he decided to be a neurosurgeon. He wanted to become a doctor, and not just any doctor - a neurosurgeon, operating on injured backs and necks. Several of Duntsch's surgeries at Baylor Plano resulted in severely maimed patients: Baylor Plano officials found that Duntsch failed to meet their standards of care and permanently revoked his surgical privileges. Many of his patients suffered severe spinal cord damage, resulting in paralysis and pain severe enough to render painkillers ineffective. He was told he would never be able to walk again. I left with him and believed in him and then, you know, he just kind of fell apart.. A deranged surgeon runs amok, maiming and killing multiple patients, unhindered by a medical community sworn to police itself. Hospital officials were exasperated when Duntsch refused to delay Efurd's surgery, and asked him multiple times to care for Brown or transfer her out of his care. He secured investments in Discgenics from local spine surgeons, including Dr. Robertson and Dr. Kevin Foley, a prominent Memphis neurosurgeon Duntsch spent a year training under as part of the surgery fellowship at the Semmes-Murphey Clinic. As a result, Summers lost almost 1,200 mL of blood. Duntsch also removed so much bone and muscle tissue from Summers' neck that his head was no longer secure on his body. "Something was wrong," Dr. Rimlawi said, "whether it be impairment from drugs, alcohol, mental illness, or a combination of all three." He recommended fusing two of her vertebrae and the insertion of "hardware" in her spinal area. Passmore focused on recovery and getting back to work in the months following his surgery. Caroline is a writer and Florida-transplant currently living in New York City. Christopher Duntsch - AKA Dr. Death - spent 18 months as a practicing surgeon at multiple Texas hospitals until he had his license revoked in 2013. By this time, Jerry Summers, his childhood friend, had moved from Tennessee to live with Duntsch. On December 30, 2011, Duntsch operated on Lee Passmore. To avoid the costs of fighting and possibly losing a wrongful termination suit, hospital officials reached a deal with Duntsch's lawyers in which Duntsch was allowed to resign in return for Baylor Plano issuing a letter stating that there were no issues with him. There are many sick people in the world, but Duntsch takes the cake for me. Now, a podcast called Dr. Death is breaking down the deranged surgeons criminal acts and shows how drug abuse and blinding overconfidence led to big trouble for the patients who found themselvesunderneath the spiraling doctors knife. A neurosurgeon in Dallas, Texas, who once described himself as a "stone cold killer" was sentenced to life in prison on February 20 for maiming a woman named Mary . Duntsch stuffed Glidewell's throat with a surgical sponge to attempt to stop the bleeding. Passmore says if he settles, he is allowing the hospital to continue to get away with their negligence. Ellis Unit outside of Huntsville, Texas. Duntschs career started off bright. Passmore met with Dr. Duntsch and was impressed by his confidence; he would fix him. Now, his time at the university . Before he was "Dr. Death" on Wondery's hit 2018 podcast, disgraced former neurosurgeon Christopher Duntsch was a student at Colorado State University.
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