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While some called his eventual downfall greed-related, who knows what evil the human mind is capable of. Methods for the treatment of degenerative disc disease Patent number: 11168305 Also present, according to Kane, was Jerry Summers, the childhood friend who would later wake up a quadriplegic after a Duntsch operation. "A few weeks later I took my first son to visit him for Christmas and then I became pregnant," Young said. Base compensation was $600,000 a year for two years, beginning on June 14, 2011. The 31 people who survived Dr. Duntsch's scalpel face a struggle for the rest of their lives. Christopher Duntsch, Known As Dr. Death, Maimed His Patients Through Routine Back Surgery. He hadnt seen it with his own eyes. After youve spent a night using cocaine, most people become paranoid and want to stay in the house. And this was 10 months before Duntsch's last surgery. He gained experience writing grants, and earned more than $3 million in local, state, and federal funding for research projects where he served as principal or co-principal investigator. Who else is left? Sort of. As these cases became public record, rumors circulated of late-night partying leading into early-morning rounds, and whispers of drug and alcohol abuse became shouts. Duntschs patient outcomes would draw lots of attention over the years. Dr Christopher Duntsch is accused of causing agony to countless patients or worse during the three years he practiced medicine in Dallas. Christopher Duntsch was disorganized and undeliberate. Unequivocally, testified an expert witness, a neurosurgeon should stop practicing after incurring multiple patient deaths and severe outcomes. is a beautiful and populous city located in Montana U.S. . The procedure was routine and involved removing bone tissue in the spine to alleviate pressure on afflicted nerves. Then he also took prescription painkillers and ate a paper blotter of LSD. But the same law also helps these very hospitals in keeping doctor credentials confidential. In a video recording of her deposition, she fidgets often, angling her head to look at a jug of Stoli, shaking her head yes or no, furrowing her brow at some of the questions. At University General Hospital, Kirby had been granted emergency privileges to operate on a Duntsch patient named Jeffery Glidewell. The new true crime show, which comes out Thursday, tells the story of promising-turned-disgraced surgeon, Dr. Christopher Duntsch (played by Jackson), who was accused of maiming and killing his more than two dozed patients. His mother, Susan, taught school. Christopher Duntsch was born in Montana and spent most of his youth in Memphis, Tennessee. So the hospitals he worked for knew of his carelessness and sociopathic behavior in the OR. During Brown's surgery, Duntsch pierced her vertebral artery. However, in the Peacock series, the couple is parents to only one child. But upon seeing that name, he took it to his boss, Dr. William Rohr. In early 2014, he was arrested for DUI and sent to rehab, according to ProPublica. In many ways, Morgan was the opposite of Young. You know, hell call and say goodnight to his boys, um, sometimes hell have bedtime stories and try to be as normal as possible.. I cant write on this form, Oh, by the way, I heard from Dr. Henderson about what sounds like major patient issues that you ought to look into, Foley said in the call. I dont have feeling in my feet, and I will slip and fall off that damn ladder, he says today. When the Texas Medical Board revoked his license, Duntsch's reign of surgical terror had run its course. Kane dated Summers for a year. Hed found a few months that were not accounted for in Duntschs educational history. In real life, after helping the ADA Michelle Shughart send Duntsch to jail, Dr Henderson continues to practice medicine in Texas. And of course, there are many in the medical field who go above and beyond the call of duty. AnnaSophia Robb, 27, portrays Michelle Shughart, the assistant district attorney on Dr. Death's case. Now, one of the several complaints against the . Passmore, an investigator by trade and by nature, started digging. What turned Dr. Christopher Duntsch into Dr. Death? Christopher Duntsch, aka Dr. Death, a former Texas-based neurosurgeon, maimed dozens of his victims and killed at least two. At Baylor Regional Medical Center,after botched surgeries and complaints from fellow doctors, Duntsch resigned. I was just like Whatever, Im out of here, Young recalled. In a statement, the hospital said it cooperated with the Texas Medical Board when asked, and did not file its own complaint because it was aware someone else already had. Morgan, in her deposition, said Duntsch called her to say he got lost going to the lab and never took the test. Henderson actually checked if Duntsch was a real doctor with The University of Tennessee, appalled at the damage to Efurd's spine. And what stops another physicianfrom turning into the next Dr. Death? This would be the first and last time Hoyle worked next to Duntsch. She was dancing at a strip club then, and Duntschs business problems were growing more severe. July 15, 2021 Scott McDermott/Peacock Peacock's new crime drama Dr. Death dramatizes the true story of Christopher Duntsch, a former Dallas-based neurosurgeon who was sentenced to life in. He performed his first operation at Dallas Medical Center on July 24, 2012; the hospital issued temporary privileges while it verified his credentials. In July 2015, indictments came through. (And if you want to dive even deeper into the story, you can also watch the scripted drama "Dr. Death" on Peacock, starring Joshua Jackson, Alec Baldwin, and Christian Slater.). The evidence said otherwise. GQ calls it the scariest podcast of 2019. Martin was his first patient back, and it was the last operation he performed at that hospital. Wendy Young knew her ex-boyfriend Christopher Duntschs medical career was unraveling, but she wasnt prepared for what she said was his bizarre behavior that coincided with his fall from grace as a surgeon. Thats when we stumbled across the gap, Passmore says. Meanwhile, Brown went brain dead and passed away. This could be path-breaking in the future ofcancer treatment andDr. Duntsch sniffed out the opportunity right away. The 43-year-old new dad, who welcomed his first child with wife Jodie Turner-Smith last year, brought his WB experience to portray the charming aspect of the surgeon, as the other characters often call him on the show. After his arrest, he still had those loving parents. I dont want my name out there. Lawsuits can cost hospitals millions of dollars and lost credibility, making it easier just tofire the offending doctor. He was taller than 6 feet, with a stubby nose and neatly cropped hair above bright blue eyes, and he had crafted a strategy that endeared him to patients and to referring physicians: Im the best, hed tell them. In actuality, Duntschhad severely deformed Mayfield's spinal column and left him immobilized from mid-chest down to his toes. He wears a gray-and-black-striped uniform, not unlike a set of scrubs. Duntsch has a court date next month for the shoplifting case along with the unrelated matter of a criminal trespass complaint filed against him last fall. Not long after, Young said Duntsch broke into her apartment for the first time. It got to be too much. I dont have Facebook, I dont Myspace. A grand jury returned five indictments of aggravated assault and one of harming an elderly person. She, after being in Duntsch's OR, would never walk again. This was the time when Dr. Christopher Duntsch started to turn intoDr. Death. The full story of Duntsch's actions can be read in Matt Goodman's D Magazine feature from 2016, when the magazine first coined him "Dr. Death.". He harmed the very people who trusted him. And there were plenty of other signs as well. In September, according to police reports . Wendy Renee Young and Christopher Duntsch were parents of two kids, Preston and Aiden. They numbed the pain radiating from his lower back, down each of his legs. Photo: The original patent still holds, and hopefully, Discgenics would be able to break out of the Dr. Death shadow todo some real anti-cancer work instead. Like Boop, Dr. Robertson also gave Duntsch a great review. Portrayed in the Peacock miniseries, "Dr. Death," the Dallas spinal surgeon is responsible for helping stop Dr. Christopher Duntsch, who was sentenced to life in prison in 2017 after leaving . 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. Hoyle became so disturbed by Duntsch's actions that at one point he physically restrained him. Thus, his license was revoked for good on December 6, 2013. There's so much news out there, headlines can slip through the cracks. I have taken one selfie in my lifeon a dare. She also says they snorted cocaine from a small pile that he kept on a dresser in his home office. One surgeon described these as never events. They shouldnt ever happen in someones entire career. We certainly would not knowingly allow one person to compromise the level of quality care that we have worked so hard and invested so much to achieve for our patients and our community.. Soon, when Duntsch was requesting privileges at Baylor Plano, Robertson sent a letter to the hospital verifying Duntschs training. He says he showed the postoperative imaging to 16 radiologists over six months, all of whom said Morguloff was normal. Passmore also learned about Kenneth Fennell, a 68-year-old who alleged in a lawsuit that, during a November procedure, Duntsch operated on the wrong body part. Though Christopher Duntsch moved to Dallas with girlfriend Wendy Young, he soon hired nurse practioner Kimberly Morgan as his assistant and began a romantic relationship with her. Saul Elbein writes in the Texas Observer that Dr. Hendersonsent him a recording of his complaint to the Texas Medical Board. Christopher Daniel Duntsch was born in Montana on April 3, 1971, and raised alongside his three siblings in an affluent suburb of Memphis, Tennessee. Moving made sense for both of them. After another disastrous outcome, this time at University General, Kirby and malpractice attorney Kay Van Wey decided to turn to the criminal justice system. Through his career, reports of him doing rounds under the influence were commonplace. They would later have two children. And yet they occurred in Duntschs operating rooms over a period of just two years. The couple had two children together. To add to this, his so-called Ph.D. at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center may also be dubious. Now keep in mind, Morgan herself was at the wrong end of some of these suits. He was gone until Monday. Shes 33 now and doesnt live in Dallas anymore. To say that this e-mail proved that Duntsch was notfit to be a doctor would be completely correct. Such behavior did not go unnoticed by the other doctors. Vascular surgeon Mark Hoyle, who assisted with the operation, later recalled that Duntsch seemed oblivious to considerable bleeding. Hoyle called the whole surgery sloppy, enough so that he canceled the remaining three or four operations he had scheduled with Duntsch and vowed never to work with him again. They lived in a future colleagues condo at the W Hotel while they looked for a home in Plano, close to where Duntsch would be practicing. You'd think that a surgeon who was this bad would have some mud spattered on him on the internet. Young lived there, too, and she says Morgan was a frequent visitor. Dawsons Creek heartthrob Jackson stars as the titular character of Dr Death, which ended up becoming Duntschs nickname after the accusations came out. Ghostbar, Dragonfly at Hotel Zaza. Duntsch grew up in a middle-class family. Duntsch placed a surgical cage where the disc was, to widen the opening around the nerve roots and relieve the pressure that was causing Passmores pain. Unlike a TV series where you get to see the character,a podcast is darker. Later, attorneys would sit on the stairwell of her Skillman Street apartment. Christopher Duntsch was an American doctor and specialized as a spinal surgeona deadly spinal surgeonwho killed three of his patients and maimed 31 others during a two-year span. Nerve pain now fires through his back, the result of a screw lodged in a nerve bundle. (Neither responded to requests for comment for this story.) Duntsch says he was so distraught by Browns outcome that he placed a screw in Efurd 3 millimeters away from where it shouldve been, damaging a nerve root. That July, Duntsch was firing off panicked emails to his business partners at 4 am on a Monday morning: My reputation has been ruined, he wrote. Lopez answers Henderson's frustrationin a somber tone, sayingthat while you may know a doctor is bad, gathering evidence takes time. But then he gave Passmore the card of a neurosurgeon named Christopher Duntsch. Medical Center at Plano.. No autopsy was done (at the familys request) but it is well-documented that the stroke was due to a left vertebral artery injury due to Dr. Duntschs horrendous surgical technique, wrote surgeon Randall Kirby in a letter to the Texas Medical Board. The Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education has strict rules about residency programs. After graduating as a physician with above-average grades, he had his whole life ahead of him. I thought he was either really, really good, or hes just really, really arrogant and thought he was good, Hoyle says now. According to Young, there was even a ransom note for her and her two children written in blood. At morning meetings, Page would see Duntsch mixing a vodka orange. 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. Wendy Renee Young says she met Duntsch in 2011 at the Beauty Shopin Memphis, a bar and restaurant that borrowed its shtick from its past life as a curl-and-dye shop owned by Elvis Presleys ex-wife. I agree completely with Dr. Hoyles complaint to the board when he stated that Dr. Duntsch is the most careless, clueless, and dangerous spine surgeon either of us has ever seen, Kirby wrote. The Texas DA chose six patients to make their case to the jury: Lee Passmore, Barry Morguloff, Jerry Summers, Kellie Martin, Floella Brown, and Mary Efurd. And, seeing as how the hospital was asking specifically about that training, Foley said he didnt feel comfortable expressing concern about what hed heard was happening in Dallas. And you are one of the lucky ones." Young let him buy her an appletini, and they hit it off. Philip is one of more than 30 people maimed by Dr. Christopher Duntsch, nicknamed Dr. Death by the media. His father, Donald, was a missionary and a physical therapist. Duntsch grew up in a middle-class family. In February 2017, Duntsch, 50, was convicted of a first-degree felony for intentionally injuring an elderly victim. She says he was prone to hyperbole, and, yeah, he had a questionable sense of humor. Duntschdestroyed the lives of numerous patients who were seeking relief from back problems. I dont know what it is, she said. They eventually went back to his home, dancing to music under a disco ball he had in his office. At this point, Ive had enough and so I called the police.. They dont want to go participate in any extraneous activities, and he was totally fine going to work.. Anton Floquet/NBCUniversal, I knocked on my door. Other doctors had to perform surgery to save his life. While the show features the exes as the parents to one son, they had two kids together in real life. Duntsch was also picked up wandering near a Chase Bank in North Dallas and taken to Green Oaks psychiatric hospital for an evaluation. The door opened and Young found Duntsch, who had earned the moniker Dr. Her body was in the Collin County Medical Examiners office in March 2012. Im the only clean minimally invasive guy in the whole state. Thats according to Dr. Mark Hoyle, who was the general surgeon during Passmores surgery. The evidence said otherwise. The hospital saved face and avoided any lawsuits. Joshua Jackson as Christopher Duntsch in "Dr. Death." (Peacock/Scott McDermott/Peacock) The real Duntsch, a Texas-based surgeon, maimed or killed 33 of 38 surgical patients between 2011 and . There is no way to communicate what happened there, without a 20-page document of disclosures and events and responsible parties, Duntsch once wrote of Brown and Efurd. Their suffering becomes yours. But as Duntsch worked, Hoyle looked over and saw blood and not much else. According to court filings, he was supposed to be overseen by an attending physician in the operating room; this allegedly was not adhered to, either. Unfortunately, Martin and Brown were not alive to tell their tale. It was the same with Dallas Medical Center where hedid not face any action. He had a room upstairs in the Plano house. He argues that the patients were just telling stories and that Passmore was fine after his operation. We ended up getting into this really big fight, and he slapped me and threw a remote and hit me with the remotes and he was yelling profanities very loud where everyone could hear and saying prostitute and whore, she said, adding he also started calling her mother names. He didnt not want to. A bold pronouncement, yet after just one sloppy, dangerous surgery, Hoyle vowednever to work with Duntsch again. Even the hospitals that he worked for kept enabling him, according to a report by the Dallas County prosecutors. The message alluded to a week where everything unraveled with their relationship. Summers had come in for an elective spinal fusion to relieve the pain hed carried for years after a car accident. Duntsch'sfinal patient, Jeffrey Glidewell, entered the operating room in2013 to undergo minimally invasive surgery to fix his long-term neck pain. Duntsch hired Morgan while he was still with the Minimally Invasive Spine Institute, and she began on August 29, 2011. Create a free profile to get unlimited access to exclusive videos, breaking news, sweepstakes, and more! But he was apprehended trying to leave the store. There is no face to the monster you are hearing about, the one destroying lives. He lost everything, so having to face the reality was very hard for him.. When Duntsch tried to reposition it, he stripped a screw; the cage wasnt going anywhere. And so shes here, in a Christian coffee shop tucked into a corner of the town square of Springtown, west of Fort Worth, where she lives with her new boyfriends parents. It still feels as if his feet are asleep. But Passmore is one of the lucky ones. Yet, instead of saving lives and using his knowledge for good, the opposite happened. Because how can I do anything I want and cross every discipline boundary like its [sic] a playground and never ever lose., Duntsch also said he was prepared to embrace the very darkest part of himself. Plano surgeon Christopher Duntsch left a trail of bodies. That venue is a civil or federal jury trial, and I would accept that if it gave the way forward to disclose, remedy, address what happened at DMC with these patients., Henderson, like Passmore, began his own investigation. And professional marketing videos got him ready and willing patients. His investors took him to court. When he finally came to the hospital, he busied himself with another patient, also on the DA's list, Mary Efurd. He struggles with incontinence. Duntsch has maimed or killed. Hoyle, the surgeon who exposed the incision in Passmore, had also filed a complaint with the board. He was the first surgeon to do so, but not the last. 679215 Registered office: 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF. The doctor in the strange case is now 50 years old. Don tried to convince the jury that his son cared for his patients. But patient advocates and the surgeons that mobilized to rid him of his license say that Duntsch was the perfect storm. In April 2015, he was arrested for stealing $887.30 in Walmart merchandise: five pairs of sunglasses, five watches, two pairs of shoes, four ties, two briefcases, a wallet, cologne, necklaces, a walkie-talkie. I am ready to leave the love and kindness and goodness and patience that I mix with everything else that I am and become a cold blooded killer. He stayed in town for his undergraduate degree, emerging from the University of Memphis in 1994. At this point, Im like freaking out, and I just, I leave.. Dubbed angels of death, they leave a trail of damage andloss for many reasons: human fallibility, malaise, or malice. He wasnt paranoid. Hospitals are liable only if the plaintiff can prove that the hospital was also malicious, that it knew of the risk and ignored it. Since receiving his life sentence, Dr Death is currently housed in the O.B. Dallas surgeon Randall Kirby says his former colleague, Dr. Christopher Duntsch, managed to commit crimes so heinous that patients everywhere are still struck by fear when they hear about the case . Kirby reported having direct knowledge of seven patients that Dr. She also never reported Duntsch up the ladder. Baylor asked him to resign immediately. Passmore was allowed to resign and still access his long-term disability insurance, which he says hed paid into for more than 10 years. It took the Texas Medical Board one whole year to investigate and finally revoke Duntsch's license. During this time, out of three procedures, one patient died and another was partially paralyzed. It had come from Baylor Regional Medical Center at Plano. And, to successfully sue a hospital, they must prove that the facility acted with malicethat, in granting a physician privileges, it intended to harm the patient. It is during this period that Duntschs carefully built faade began showing its first cracks. Around this time, Drs. Its less than a millimeter from the spinal canal. Ultimately, Duntsch'shorrific mistakes made during surgeryand alleged drug use caught up with him. This is accomplished by: Establishing quality . He has taken Baylor Plano to court to change the Texas law requiring patients to prove that a hospital intended to harm them when it granted privileges to someone who was unsafe. That was the same month the two started having sex. Duntsch contends the patient was just trying to get painkillers. The real question is:Why couldn't anyone stop him in time? His work ethic, character, and ability to get along with others were beyond reproach, Robertson wrote. They described him as the bright, precocious little boy who had taken. One of the early investors in Duntsch's company Discgenics was Dr. Rand Page. Suite 2100 Governor Greg Abbott, then the attorney general, even waded into the whole mess, filing a brief in Passmores suit in support of the law. She says she didnt hear or see any altercation between Duntsch and Mark Hoyleher view was blocked by a microscope, and the combined hum of the EKG machine and the oxygen cylinder drowned out the sound of Hoyles pleading, if there was any. He said, "What I am being is what I am, one of kind, a mother f****r stone cold killer that can buy or own or steal or ruin or build whatever he wants.". According to court documents, Rimlawi soon grew suspicious of Duntsch. With Ignatova and Kukekov in tow, he filed patents under a company he founded. His father was a missionary and physical therapist and his mother was a school teacher. He was so appalled at the results of the procedures that he faxed a photo of Duntsch to the University of Tennessee to see if the surgeon was an impostor. Will it help patients protect their rights? The civil attorneys in these cases were able to land a rather damning e-mail sent from Duntsch to his girlfriend/physical assistant.The girlfriend was Kimberly Morgan, and in the e-mail to her, the ramblings of a mind gone wrong are clear. But what Duntsch hadnt counted on was the Dallas County District Attorneys Office. Maybe thats how they do it in Tennessee, but according to my training, thats not how they do it here. 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. Christopher Duntsch - AKA Dr. Death - spent 18 months asa practicing surgeon atmultiple Texas hospitals until hehad his license revoked in 2013. Meanwhile, Duntsch was struggling financially and started racking up a series of strange arrests. But Dr. William Rohr did editorialize in his conclusion: The collection of blood was most likely the result of a therapeutic misadventure. Duntsch blames the death on an allergy to fentanyl, a powerful narcotic often used in intubation. His emails were crazy, Van Wey recalled in the docuseries. They'd requested an investigation into his matter, deeming him to be a threat to the general public. At Health Grades Duntsch had 4.3 out of 5 stars, "above [the] national average." Kane came into the picture as a deposition witness. What made this well-recommended neurosurgeon harm his patients and himself? To be a good doctor, you have to be a good human being. (He also appears in no yearbooks from the University of Tennessee Health Science Center at the time in which he says he earned his Ph.D., and the school declined to verify his claims, citing afederal privacy law.) Duntsch moved to Colorado to live with his parents, while Young stayed behind in Dallas with the couple's son. He grew up in a middle-class suburb with a teacher mom and a missionary/physical therapist dad. After they all partied through the night, powered by LSD and cocaine, she said she saw Duntsch put on his lab coat to make rounds the next morning. The seeds of greed were sown. Duntsch maintains that the practice didnt meet the promises it agreed to, and that it still owes him money. Based on Wondery's viral podcast of the same name, Stan's Dr. Death follows the sinister true story of former American neurosurgeon Dr. Christopher Duntsch, who became known as 'Dr. Death' after he left a trail of maimed patients across various hospitals in Texas. The 78-year-old Denton County man was then Dr. Christopher Duntsch's first patient when the surgeon started performing spinal fusions in 2011. Boop also said that Duntsch spent his final year operating as an attending physician, and was not allowed to operate independently. But the media definitely played its part sending Dr. Death where he rightfully belongs, life in prison. Henderson was brought in to operate two days later. Mary Efurd, 74, was to have two vertebrae fused, linked by a metal plate. He ran two labs, is listed as one of three inventors on a successful patent, raised millions of dollars in grant funding, and once gave a tour to the governor of Tennessee as he explained the stem cell research occurring at the university. His mom was a teacher. He secured investments in Discgenics from local spine surgeons, including Robertson and Dr. Kevin Foley, a prominent Memphis neurosurgeon under whom Duntsch would spend a year training as part of a minimally invasive spine surgery fellowship at the Semmes-Murphey Clinic, one of the largest neurosurgery practices in the United States. Unlike Summers, Brown, 63, suffered from hypertension and was a stroke risk. A husband and wife pair of Russian stem cell scientists, Valery Kukekov and Tatyana Ignatova entered the picture. . Passmore says the space above a disc in his lower spine had been blown out in the first surgery, and Duntsch returned to pick out the pieces. Create your free profile and get access to exclusive content. I dont want to be in your magazine, sir, I apologize, Passmore told me. Strangely enough, Dr. Boop also mentioned, "I have not operated with Chris." 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. You, my child, are the only one between me and the other side, he wrote. "Dr. Death," which was shot earlier this year in the Albuquerque area and debuted July 15 on the Peacock streaming service, is the story of Christopher Duntsch, who is now serving a life sentence . Within months, she says, he had offers in Dallas, San Diego, and New York.