[9] Texas Medical Board Revocation Order. On top of this, he misspelled both Kukekov and Ignatova's names. An investigator by trade and nature, Passmore started digging into Dr. Christopher Duntsch. [16][24] Henderson described Duntsch's surgery as an "assault", and concluded that Efurd would have been bedridden had the salvage surgery not been performed. Kirby warned him again that it was only a matter of time. He knew this couldn't have been a one-time mistake. However, it wouldnt be long until Duntschs seemingly perfect career began to unravel. Baylor Plano allowed Duntsch to continue operating despite the documented issues with Kenneth Fennell, Mary Efurd, Lee Passmore, and Barry Morguloff's surgeries. 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. During surgery, he cut a major vessel in her spinal cord. She also said they snorted cocaine from a small pile he kept on a dresser in his home office. Next week marks the five-year anniversary of Texas neurosurgeon Christopher Duntsch being sentenced to life in prison. Finally, Dr. Kirby received a call from Hassan Chahadeh. 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. [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. Dr Death, un nuevo programa que llegar a Peacock el jueves (15 de julio), se basa en la historia de la vida real de Christopher Duntsch, un ex neurocirujano que era, como dijo un famoso titular de ProPublica, "tan malo que era criminal".. Joshua Jackson interpreta a Duntsch, que ahora tiene 50 aos y cumple cadena perpetua despus de ser condenado en 2017 por mutilar a uno de sus . Many of his patients suffered severe spinal cord damage, resulting in paralysis and pain severe enough to render painkillers ineffective. Muse woke up in considerable pain, but Duntsch convinced him it was normal. Duntsch arrived at the hospital about 45 minutes after Efurd's surgery had been scheduled. One of the early investors in DiscGenics, Rand Page, said Duntsch would be mixing a vodka orange juice during their morning meetings. Dr. Fulton never worked with Duntsch again. Baylor officials took Summers' accusation seriously and ordered Duntsch to take a drug test. 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. Dr. Duntsch assured Muse that the pain was normal and prescribed him, strong pain killers, causing him to spiral into an addiction. Left: WFAA-TV, Right: D MagazineLeft: Christopher Duntsch in surgery, Right: Christopher Duntschs mugshot. His father was a missionary and physical therapist and his mother was a school teacher. Summers had a credit card in his name connected to Duntsch's account and would drive him around, balance his checkbooks, and pick up his dry cleaning. [7] While operating on Jacqueline Troy, Duntsch cut one of her vocal cords and an artery and also damaged her trachea. However, during training for neurosurgery he followed a research path and did fewer operations than most trainees. Once, he stopped by to pick up some paperwork. Jeff Glidewell came across Dr. Christopher Duntsch in 2013 while searching for a neurosurgeon . Base compensation was $600,000 a year for two years, beginning on June 14, 2011. However, he ignored them and proceeded with his scheduled surgery on Efurd. He was told he would never be able to walk again. To stop the bleeding, he packed the space with so much anticoagulant foam that it constricted Summers' spine. Dr. "[45], Wondery Media launched a ten-episode podcast series named Dr. Death, focusing on Duntsch. 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 . Christopher Duntsch wrote that he was ready to become a "cold blooded killer". When other doctors discovered the sponge, Duntsch refused to return to help remove it. [8] Duntsch returned home to attend Memphis State University (now the University of Memphis). [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. "He said the patient died from having an allergic reaction to the anesthesia." No diagnostic imaging studies were ordered, and no reasonable explanation was offered for his condition. After intense rehab and his determination, eventually, he was able to use a walker and cane to mobilize himself. 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. Death' found guilty of maiming woman during surgery", "Former neurosurgeon sentenced for purposely maiming patients", "Doctor convicted of botched surgery gets life in prison", "Christopher Daniel Duntsch v. The State of Texas Appeal from Criminal District Court No. And its all because of one surgeon named Christopher Duntsch a.k.a. His father, Donald, was a physical therapist and Christian missionary. Kirby was shocked; he called the owner of University General and warned him that Duntsch would hurt someone, and the hospital would be over. However, Duntsch was allowed to resign, and the hospital didn't notify the National Practitioner Data Bankagain. 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. 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. During his tenure at Baylor Plano, Kimberly Morgan assisted in every surgery with Duntsch. He was a genius. Updated Dec 9, 2022 at 3:25pm. In addition, a ligament in his leg was severed, and a screw was stripped and lodged into a nerve bundle. Duntsch approached Pam Trusty about being on camera during a follow-up visit where she was still in pain. He recommended fusing two of her vertebrae and the insertion of "hardware" in her spinal area. [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". Why do Slipknot wear masks and what do they look like without? D Magazine gave him the nickname in . The pressure was building inside her brain. Dr. Death is based on the podcast of the same name, produced by Wondery. Christopher Duntsch is confirmed to have injured 31 patients and killed two . When Henderson opened the freshly made incisions on her, he was appalled. [23][19][24], While operating on Efurd, Duntsch severed one of her nerve roots during spinal fusion surgery while operating on the wrong portion of her back, twisted a screw into another nerve, left screw holes on the opposite side of her spine, failed to remove the disc he was supposed to remove, and left surgical hardware in her muscle tissue so loose that it moved when touched. [4], After 13 days of trial, the jury needed only four hours to convict him for the maiming of Efurd. 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.. "After building a flourishing neurosurgery practice, everything suddenly changes when patients entering Dr. Duntsch's operating room for complex but routine spinal surgeries start leaving permanently disabled or dead. But soon his patients started to experience complications, and the system failed to protect them. Death'? 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. According to court documents, surgeons at the Minimally Invasive Spine Institute soon grew suspicious of Duntsch. Could you take care of it?" [4], Early in his tenure at Baylor Plano, Duntsch made a poor impression on his fellow surgeons. "If he wasn't doing research, he was out with Jerry Summers, partying," Morgan said in her deposition. July 19, 2021. Thankfully, this ended up being Dr. Christopher Duntsch's last operation. But, she never reported Duntsch up the ladder or told anyone about the horrors she witnessed in the operating room. He was sent to a program for impaired physicians when he returned but was allowed to finish his residency. Even though he lived in Colorado, he returned to Dallas to see his two sons. Caroline is a writer and Florida-transplant currently living in New York City. He decided to turn to neurosurgery, which can be a lucrative field. Ellis Unit outside of Huntsville, Texas. Board chairman Irwin Zeitzler later said that complications in neurosurgery were more common than most laymen believe, and it took until June 2013 to find the "pattern of patient injury" required to justify suspending Duntsch's license. Trusty would later find out there was no award and it had just been a paid advertisement. It was then that Christopher decided to switch his career to medicine. He was tragically mistaken. He was left with only one vocal cord, permanent damage to his esophagus, and partial paralysis on his left side. From 2017: https://bit.ly/3hXJccx Chris Dozois, a fellow linebacker with the Rams, recalled Duntsch struggling, even with basic drills, but begging to run them over and over until he got it right. 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. In 2006, Duntsch teamed up with two Russian stem cell scientists: Valery Kukekov and Tatyana Ignatova. 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?" Muse spiraled into opioid addiction that cost him his wife and his job. It had come from Baylor Regional Medical Center at Plano. For instance, he came to work wearing the same tattered scrubs for three days in a row. A spill of more than 500,000-gallons of crude oil from the Keystone Pipeline in December in Kansas was caused by a combination of a faulty weld and "bending stress fatigue" on the pipe, the . Everything went perfect in there." Where is Christopher Duntsch AKA Dr. Death now? His CV also conveyed he earned a Ph.D. in microbiology from St. Jude Children's Research Hospitals, graduating summa cum laude. Shughart countered that the 2011 email, sent after his first surgeries went wrong, proved that Duntsch knew his actions were intentional. Prosecutors also faulted Duntsch's employers for not reporting him. [4][5] In 2017, he was convicted of maiming one of his patients and sentenced to life imprisonment. "It's on the butt cheek of his scrubs. Jerry Summers, who grew up with Christopher Duntsch in Tennessee, was left a quadriplegic after agreeing to let "Dr. Death" operate on his neck. She was dancing at a strip club in Memphis, and Duntsch's issues with his business, DiscGenics, grew more severe. His case is receiving renewed attention in the media. Dr. Death in surgery. Duntsch continued operating despite clear signs that Martin was losing massive amounts of blood. Christopher Duntsch was nicknamed Dr. Death due to the injuries he caused his patients. Wendy Young knew her ex-boyfriend Christopher Duntsch's medical career was unraveling, but she wasn't prepared for what she said was his bizarre behavior that coincided with his fall from grace as a surgeon.. The sponge triggered a severe blood-borne infection that caused Glidewell to become septic. When he arrived, Nurse Kyle Kissinger spotted a hole in Duntsch's scrubs. As the trial team put it, the "scary pattern" of Duntsch's actions became apparent to the others in the office, leading the DA to give the green light to take the case to a grand jury. Jurors convicted Duntsch Tuesday of injury to an elderly person in the botched July 2012 surgery that put Mary Efurd in a wheelchair. However, things soon went south. My surgery was 3 months ago but i noticed difference right away. At one point, he was only able to eat small bites of food at one time. Before his license was revoked by the Texas Medical Board, he was accused of injuring 33 out of 38 . Duntsch had his surgical rights temporarily suspended after his botched surgery on Summers and his first patient back was 55-year-old Kellie Martin. Dhruv Trivedi. They created a method for culturing the stem cells of intervertebral discs outside of the body. D MagazineChristopher Duntsch a.k.a. Famously known by the Family name Christopher Daniel Duntsch, is a great neurosurgeon and convicted criminal for malpractice.He was born on April 3, 1971, in Montana. He was put on probation for three weeks and told to stick to relatively minor procedures when he returned. However, by the time he met Young, Duntsch was over $500,000 in debt. [30], Henderson and Kirby feared that Duntsch could move elsewhere and still theoretically get a medical license. Dallas Magazine states that Duntsch became key in supplying samples to scientists for research. 2-Dr.Randall Kirby, a hero. Death. They also believed that 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. Film & TV 'Dr. Death' Condemns Christopher Duntsch, but the Real Culprit Is Texas's Broken Health-Care System I helped break the story on the convicted surgeon, but Peacock's dramatized . 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. Death', "Texas Jury Imposes Life Sentence on Neurosurgeon", "The Making and Breaking of Dr. "Christopher Duntsch" (Dr. Death)", "Season 14 of CNBC's 'American Greed' Premieres Monday, January 18 at 10PM", Dr. Death: The Texas Surgeon Who Paralyzed his Patients, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Christopher_Duntsch&oldid=1139253982. Create your free profile and get access to exclusive content. Duntsch also appears in no yearbooks during the time in which he says he earned his Ph.D. Fennell is in constant pain, and it took several months of rehabilitation before he could begin to walk with a cane. With Brown still in the ICU, Duntsch took another patient into surgery that morning. He will not be eligible for parole until 2045, when he will be 74-years-old. Over objections from Duntsch's lawyers, prosecutors called many of Duntsch's other patients to the stand to prove that his actions were intentional. Getty Dr. Duntsch, aka "Dr. Death", operated on his last patient in 2013, before he was arrested.
