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. How could Dr. Christopher Duntsch practice medicine for as long as he did without being stopped? Leaving on April 20, 2012, with a lawyer-negotiated letter saying, "All areas of concern with regard to Christopher D. Duntsch have been closed. Unfortunately, when Morguloff woke up, he began to experience continuous pain, paresthesia, and loss of sensation in his left leg. When Jerry Summers woke up, he couldn't move his arms or legs. Passmore focused on recovery and getting back to work in the months following his surgery. Thankfully, this ended up being Dr. Christopher Duntsch's last operation. He is not eligible for parole until 2045; he will be 74 years old by then. During surgery, Duntsch damaged Summers' vertebral artery causing it to bleed uncontrollably. [33][34] The indictments were made four months before the statute of limitations were to run out. Death. Dhruv Trivedi. ", "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. Death'? His sophomore year, he made it as one of the few walk-on players. Could you take care of it?" "Something was wrong," Dr. Rimlawi said, "whether it be impairment from drugs, alcohol, mental illness, or a combination of all three." Part of the problem was being able to prove that Duntsch's actions were willful as defined by Texas law. Those words continue to haunt her, and she's tormented by the knowledge that her endorsement caused others to select Duntsch themselves. Once, he stopped by to pick up some paperwork. 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. Henderson then cleaned out bone fragments and discovered that one of Efurd's nerve roots was gone entirely. His girlfriend, Wendy Young, had a second son in September 2014. He completed a spine fellowship program at the Semmes-Murphey Clinic in Memphis for his surgical residency, spending the standard five years on neurosurgery and one-year learning general surgery. Christopher Duntsch was born in Montana and spent most of his youth in Memphis, Tennessee. It was. Pic credit: Dallas County Sheriff's Office. 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. Duntsch had also installed hardware into her muscle, not her bone, so loose that it moved when you touched it. 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 . Death.. This case was filed in Dallas County District Courts, Dallas County Civil District Courts located in Dallas, Texas. The pressure was building inside her brain. Baylor Regional Medical Center in Plano (now Baylor Scott and White Medical Center - Plano). The surgical disasters of neurosurgeon Christopher Duntsch led to his jailing in 2017, setting a legal precedent. [48], In 2019, Duntsch was the focus of the premiere episode of License to Kill, Oxygen's series on criminal medical professionals. His case is receiving renewed attention in the media. They talked about marriage quickly, and they moved in together within three months. His name appeared on several papers and patents, and he took part in a number of biotech startups. Passmore met with Dr. Duntsch and was impressed by his confidence; he would fix him. To top it all off, he was operating on the wrong portion of her back. While Kirby was repairing Troy, he uncovered that Duntsch had pinned her esophagus under a plate near her spine and poked holes in her trachea. But soon his patients started to experience complications, and the system failed to protect them. Summers remained quadriplegic for the rest of his life. Written by Patrick Macmanus, the show will only be available exclusively on Peacock. 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. The staff told Duntsch that Brown, his patient from the day before, was in critical condition. and Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee Health Center. An anesthesiologist and Dr. Anson Fulton, who assisted with the surgery, warned Duntsch about the blood loss, and he continued to ignore them and operate. He didn't contact a lawyer, although he struggled with the decision. He is not eligible for parole until 2045, when he will be 74 years old. Wendy Young had just given birth to their son and lived there with him. [11] Several of his friends recalled him going to work after a night of doing drugs, with one of them saying he would never allow Duntsch to operate on him. [16] In 2021, he was profiled on CNBC's American Greed. Now, one of the several complaints against the . His father, Donald, was a physical therapist and Christian missionary, and his mother, Susan, was a schoolteacher. February 21, 2017 / 5:45 AM / CBS News. The Peacock originalDr Deathis based on atrue story. If you had back pain, and had tried everything else, Dr. Duntsch could give you the spine surgery that would take your pain away. At the time, Duntsch was looking for operating prospects in Dallas, San Diego, and New York. Christopher Duntsch, known as "Dr. Death" tried to explain himself in rambling emails, but he only made things worse for his criminal case. Morgan didn't follow Duntsch after he left, however. Henderson and Kirby feared that Duntsch could move and theoretically get a medical license in another state. Their fling was confined to his office at Baylor Plano, and Morgan said in her deposition that he frequently drank vodka and did medical research for hours. During his surgery, Duntsch didnt installed the necessary hardware to Muses spine and instead had left it floating between the spine and muscle tissue. By this time, Duntsch was almost penniless, and the judge had to appoint a lawyer for him. He was put on probation for three weeks and told to stick to relatively minor procedures when he returned. Then, on July 24, 2012, he operated on Floella Brown. DiscGenics says its mission is toimprove the lives of those suffering from the debilitating effects of degenerative diseases of the spine. B. Ellis Unit outside Huntsville. Duntsch's defense blamed their client's actions on poor training and lack of hospital oversight. Duntsch's next stop was at Dallas Medical Center. ", "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. Dr. Death is based on the podcast of the same name, produced by Wondery. For 33 patients of Texas neurosurgeon Christopher Duntsch, it was a reality. And its all because of one surgeon named Christopher Duntsch a.k.a. [2][4][19][7], Duntsch moved to Dallas Medical Center in Farmers Branch, where he was granted temporary privileges until hospital officials could obtain his records from Baylor Plano. Around 2006 and 2007, Duntsch began to become unhinged. Though he appealed his conviction in 2018, it was denied. 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. That same month, the two began an affair. July 19, 2021. His very first operation at the hospital would once again turn deadly. [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. "Christopher Duntsch, Texas Medical Board license number N8183, is an impaired physician, a sociopath, and must be stopped from practicing medicine." Robin Glidewell also sent a letter . 'Hot TikTok doc' urges young people to get jabbed - warning of dangers of long Covid, Daughter, 39, guilty of stabbing mum to death before setting house on fire and dumping her dismembered body in river, Pregnant beautician loses baby after savage beating by monster husband who kidnapped her amid divorce row, Shocking moment man is crushed to death by an enraged elephant after crowd taunts herd of jumbos. Duntsch's next patient was Jeff Glidewell. She suffered a stroke as a result. She came in to have two vertebrae fused, but when she woke up she experienced severe pain and couldnt stand. Morgan says they spent a lot of time in clubs. He said even a person with the most basic sense of human anatomy would know they were operating in the wrong area. 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. 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. [4], Longtime spine surgeon Robert Henderson performed the salvage surgery on Efurd. Moving made sense for both of them. Three holes had been poked into Efurd's spinal column where Duntsch had tried and failed to insert screws. Dr. Christopher Duntsch became the subject of a Peacock original series for all the wrong reasons. "As his victims pile up, two fellow physicians and Dallas prosecutor Michelle Shughart set out to stop him.". Several people who were in the operating room for Efurd's surgery suspected that Duntsch might have been intoxicated, recalling that his pupils were dilated. Baylor suspended Duntsch, pictured, for a month. Now, his time at the university . He was nicknamed Dr. D. and Dr. Death for malpractice resulting in the maiming of several patients and killing two of them while working at hospitals in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. In February 2012, he went under the knife for an elective spinal fusion surgery. He was brilliant. [7] He likened what he found when he opened Efurd up to the results of a child playing with Tinkertoys or an erector set. He was left with only one vocal cord, permanent damage to his esophagus, and partial paralysis on his left side. Boop said that Duntsch spent his final year as an attending physician and could not operate independently. When Henderson saw the imaging from Duntsch's surgery, he was certain that there would be legal action, and had the salvage surgery recorded. By this time, Jerry Summers, his childhood friend, had moved from Tennessee to live with Duntsch. Dr Deathis a new limited series about the rise and fall of Duntsch. Duntsch stuffed Glidewell's throat with a surgical sponge to attempt to stop the bleeding. In his first surgery after his suspension lifted, he nicked the vertebral artery of Kellie Martin, a 55-year-old Garland woman. among the top 12 percent of medical school graduates in his class named to the elite Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society. 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. The series peers into the torturous crimes of . He is currently appealing this sentence. However, on January 6, 2012, a week after the surgery, Dr. Duntsch performed another operation on Passmore. 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. In one particularly disturbing episode, in March 2015, she said she arrived home to her front door had been locked with a deadbolt from the inside. Death,' Dallas neurosurgeon Christopher Duntsch", "Texas neurosurgeon nicknamed 'Dr. Christopher was raised along with his three younger siblings in a wealthy suburb in Memphis, Tennessee. He was left with pain so debilitating he could not work any longer and now spends most of his days at home. Dr. Hassan Chahadeh, the owner, said when Duntsch had applied for privileges, his record was clean. [4] In an article for The Texas Prosecutor, the journal of the Texas District and County Attorneys Association, Shughart and the other members of the trial team recalled that their superiors were initially skeptical when they presented the case, but eventually found themselves in "overwhelming disbelief" that a surgeon could do what Duntsch was accused of doing. February 22, 2017. She says she even filed a temporary protective order against him in April 2012, after he showed up banging on her window at 2 am. Ellis Unit outside of Huntsville, Texas. It involves the case of Dr. Christopher Duntsch, a spinal neurosurgeon who left a trail of dead and permanently disabled . The indictments were made four months before the statute of limitations ran out. The Texas Medical Board would later conclude that Brown died of excessive blood loss and a stroke, according to The Texas Observer . From 2011 to 2013, dozens of patients in the Dallas area woke up after their surgeries with horrible pain, numbness and, paralysis.
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