He was very eloquent in stating the causes and the need for the procedure. The protections make some sense. In doing so, hospitals preserved Duntsch's reputation. Deathand the intense media scrutiny surrounding the shocking case would drive Young out of Dallas with the couples two sons. 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. Anatomy of a Tragedy. Duntsch briefly enrolled at CSU in the fall of 1991 when he was 20 years old. He hired a marketing team and nurses. Victim statements reveal more gruesome details of botched surgeries - WFAA 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. Mary told reporters afterward, "I think its going to be like a floodgate thats going to really open, crying. The boards mandate, spelled out in the Medical Practice Act, recognizes a doctors license as a hard-won, valuable credential. I'm a complex spine surgeon. It was that egregious. Christopher Duntsch and Jerry Summers weren't only best friends - they took care of one another. Because he owed people a lot of money. He was convicted of injury to an elderly person in the 2012 surgery on Mary Efurd that put her in a. 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. Baylor brought in a senior surgeon to fix the damage to Summers spine. Kellie Martin and Floella Brown died. .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. Friends since they played football together in high school, Summers helped Duntsch stay organized while he worked in the lab during his residency. Dr Death Christopher Duntsch's late patient Jerry Summers claims killer 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. As those watching the show know, Christopher was dubbed "Dr. Death" in D Magazine for his botched surgeries that caused the death of several patients and left others with disabling injuries. The once notable neurosurgeon is now 50 years old. Dr. Randall Kirby was another surgeon at Baylor Plano. My whole world crashed, he said. He was horrified to realize that Duntsch was going to keep practicing. . Duntsch was offered a $600,000 advance and a temporary suite in a luxury hotel to come to Dallas while the couple searched for a new home in Plano, according to a 2018Dr. It is unclear what she has been up to since Duntsch's life imprisonment sentence. He sounded impressive, Don said. He nicked the patients vertebral artery, causing the space he was working in to fill with blood. But the board is limited in its ability to investigate malpractice. Duntsch grew up in a middle-class family. 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. Theres no reason to assume another doctor would have advised her differently. He felt confident. 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. To suspend a license, as one Medical Board staffer explained, there has to be enough evidence to prove a pattern. Like pilot trainingyou dont expect a trained pilot to get drunk and fly his plane into the ground., But its more complicated than that. He chose Dallas after learning that Young had family near thecityand she offered to go with him. 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. His father was a missionary and physical therapist and his mother was a school teacher. On the online doctor-rating site Healthgrades.com, he had 4.5 stars out of five. After Christopher performed a spinal surgery on Mary in 2012, Mary suffered crippling pain afterward. My record is excellent," he told The Dallas Morning News in 2015. More than a year had passed since Kellie Martins death and the complaint that started it all. 121. In 2017, Duntsch was sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of maiming one of his patients. He seemed to have a hard time moving organs and blood vessels out of the way, according to Kirby. Further, both works question Duntsch's perspective. In effect, plaintiffs have to prove a very tough case without access to the necessary hospital records. The Legislature doesnt want the Medical Board taking a doctors licenseand livelihoodunnecessarily or based on flimsy or frivolous claims. He was found guilty of his crimes in 2017 and sentenced to life in prison. 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. Speaking to Inside Edition, they called him "a snake in the grass," "a monster," "drug addict" and even "a psychopath.". When she responds, shes quiet. 2021 The Texas Observer. A dissection of an esophagus led to significant blood loss in one patient. Its not clear how such a well-trained surgeon could have performed so disastrously, but the June 26 Medical Board report offers a hint: Respondent is unable to practice medicine with reasonable skill and safety due to impairment from drugs or alcohol.. But as investigators took a look back at Christopher's history and consulted with those who knew him, what they discovered was quite disturbing. In July 2012, four months after Kellie Martins death, Duntsch applied for surgical privileges at Dallas Medical Center. Its not clear how much Dallas Medical Center officials knew about Duntschs past or how much Baylor told them. When Kirby saw Glidewell, he later wrote the Medical Board, he was horrified. The incision, he wrote, was cut into Glidewells throat two or three inches lower and an inch midline from where it should have been oriented saliva and pus were coming out of the wound.. Two weeks later, on June 14, 2013, Kirby got a call to come to University General to do a recovery surgery on one of Duntschs patients. Summers remains paralyzed. 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. But what is the real-life story behind Duntsch and Youngs complicated romance? For a temporary suspension, the standard is even higher than the boards other enforcement actions. And then there was the 2011 case of Dr. Rolando Arafiles, the West Texas doctor who sicced the county sheriff on two nurses who dared report him to the Texas Medical Board (see Intent to Harm, March 2011). While that complaint worked its way through the system, another of his patients died of a hydrocodone overdose. But Baylor didnt hold him to that. Once Duntsch left Baylor, he was no longer the hospitals problem. When I think about it, its just devastating., When I spoke to him, a year after his wifes death, he told me that they had trusted Duntsch, and that there had been no sign suggesting they do otherwise. According to the outlet, while Jerry's lawyer said Christopher could now be criminally charged after his client's death, he believes Jerry wouldn't want that "because he had forgiven his friend for what had happened.". And in its place is where he had placed the fusion. As a result, one patient died from a massive blood lost. 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. We felt confident too.. Hes been devastated, Don Duntsch said. A 27-year-old Young had been working as a stripper in Memphis when she met Duntsch, then 40. Site made in collaboration with CMYK. Texas neurosurgeon gets life in prison for deliberately injuring Duntsch hired Morgan as his assistant while he was still with the Minimally Invasive Spine Institute in August of 2011. Up until 2003, medical care in Texas was regulated by a system of checks. "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. When the Medical Board suspended Duntschs license, the agencys spokespeople too seemed shocked. Young told D Magazine she was forced to move from her Dallas home after investigators started camping out on her street and attorneys started waiting in the stairwell of her apartment, looking for Duntsch. A man who was a victim of other people's bad work and bad behavior," he told Newsweek. He told Morgan that Young was just his secretary from Memphis, whose husband would be moving to the area soon, according to the podcast. Dr. Death: Disgraced surgeon at center of podcast, show has CSU roots They used phrases like the worst surgeon Ive ever seen. One doctor I spoke with, brought in to repair one of Duntschs spinal fusion cases, remarked that it seemed Duntsch had learned everything perfectly just so he could do the opposite. For 33 patients of Texas neurosurgeon Christopher Duntsch, it was a reality. The medical malpractice cap and the near-immunity for hospitals snapped two threads from the regulatory web. But the Legislature hindered plaintiffs cases even more by allowing hospitals to, in most cases, keep credentialing information confidential.
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