christopher duntsch brothersfdep southwest district

The Legislature has also made suing hospitals difficult. Another suffered a sliced vertebral artery which led to a stroke and later death. In December 2012, he performed a cervical fusion at Legacy Surgery Center of Frisco that left his patient with paralyzed vocal cordsan unheard-of complication. In July 2012, four months after Kellie Martins death, Duntsch applied for surgical privileges at Dallas Medical Center. In the aftermath of the debacle, the doctors who saw Duntschs handiwork were left to make sense of what happened. 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. 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.. On the online doctor-rating site Healthgrades.com, he had 4.5 stars out of five. These doctors are busythey have practices of their own that pay a lot better than volunteering for the Medical Boardand there arent many of them. Senior Editor, Editorial Business Development, Where Is Dr. Death Now? 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. He was friendly, and we had good conversation. I was very independent and I had to become dependent on others for transportation, for my meals, for a lot of things," she said. A poorly put-together case can mean months or years of expensive litigation. By Jill Sederstrom & Leah Carroll Joshua Jackson On Role Of Surgeon, Christopher Duntsch, In Peacock's "Dr. Death" Series Now Playing Digital Original Why Trust Us? So I called them up, and they said, Will you fill out a complaint, and well probably read the complaint in about 30 days, and well start an investigation after that., I said, You dont seem to understand. Some drag on for years. In 2012, when Efurd was 74, she saw Duntsch for what should have been a relatively simple surgery to fuse two of her vertebrae. It was mostly designed to monitor doctors licenses and make sure the states medical practitioners are keeping up with professional standards. You could have a Medical Board thats the size of the [Texas Department of Public Safety], she said, but the state doesnt want that. Dr. Death is the new true-crime series on Peacock starring The Affair's Joshua Jackson as the infamous surgeon Dr. Christopher Duntsch. "The nerve root had been severed. According to his ex-girlfriend Wendy Young (played by Mollie Griggs in the show), Duntsch is in touch with his two sons. Christopher Duntsch - AKA Dr. Death - spent 18 months as a practicing surgeon at multiple Texas hospitals until he had his license revoked in 2013. Dr. Christopher Duntschs patients ended up maimed and dead, but the real tragedy is that the Texas Medical Board couldnt stop him. We rely on the generosity of our readers who believe that this work is important. But it doesnt get to keep much of it: In fiscal year 2013, the board sent almost $40 million to the states General Revenue fund, of which it got about $11 million back. Theres no reason to assume another doctor would have advised her differently. According to what his former assistant Kimberly Morgan said in her deposition, Christopher allegedly would regularly drink vodka and kept a handle of Stoli underneath his desk. The romance played out mostly in Duntsch's office at Baylor Plano, where he often did research after hours and drank vodka from a handle of Stoli he kept under his desk, according to D Magazine. To suspend a license, as one Medical Board staffer explained, there has to be enough evidence to prove a pattern. Up until 2003, medical care in Texas was regulated by a system of checks. Even now, Young told American Greed she still hears from Duntsch when he calls to talk to their sons. After surgery, the patient, Barry Morguloff, woke up in more back pain than hed started with and had no feeling in his left leg. It was a minimally invasive surgery, Kirby said, that killed Kellie Martin. She would be present during the spinal . And still it took the Texas Medical Board more than a year to stop Duntscha year in which he kept bringing into the operating room patients who ended up seriously injured or dead. Meanwhile, he was continuing to get patients, continuing to operate. His father was a missionary and physical therapist and his mother was a school teacher. Duntsch's trial took place in 2017. Unfortunately, sometimes it takes longer than we want., What Henderson took from this, he told me, is that were dealing with people who dont do the job they are hired to do.. Duntsch briefly enrolled at CSU in the fall of 1991 when he was 20 years old. The temporary suspension was a power the Legislature gave the board in 2003. The investigator, Maria Lopez, lets him yell. Wendy Young Photo: Anton Floquet/NBCUniversal Martins surgery was Duntschs last at Baylor. More than a year had passed since Kellie Martins death and the complaint that started it all. Kellie Martin was in good health; a laminectomy is considered a minor procedure. Further, both works question Duntsch's perspective. Once Duntsch proved himself inept, hospitals let him resign instead of going through the legal process of firing him. "He works out, he reads, he studies the Biblehell call and say goodnight to his boys. But the board is limited in its ability to investigate malpractice. Soon after Summers woke up paralyzed, a woman named Kellie Martin came to see Duntsch at Texas Neurosurgical Institute. [3] The series is set to premiere on July 12 and will feature a star-studded cast. Duntsch was also arrested for driving under the influence while staying with his parents in Colorado and found himself in handcuffs another time in April of 2015 after he was arrested for stealing $887.30 in Walmart merchandise, according to theD Magazine. He waited until they told him his wife had been sent to the intensive care unit. Even when the board does sanction a doctor, those sanctions are often lighteven in cases in which the doctor is badly impaired. The show starsJoshua Jackson,Grace Gummer, AnnaSophia Robb,Christian SlaterandAlec Baldwin. Because he owed people a lot of money. In November 2011 he was granted surgical privileges at Baylor Regional Medical Center of Plano. He was a genius, Ellison said,adding that Morgan initially felt she had found the one.. Christopher Duntsch and Jerry Summers weren't only best friends - they took care of one another. Christopher Duntsch was just a regular guy who became Dr. Death after he decided to be a neurosurgeon. Martin selected Dr. Christopher Duntsch, a neurosurgeon with a glowing reputation, to perform the surgery at Baylor Plano Hospital. Duntsch, he said, was the worst. "He has a job inside the prison. He didnt tell them about Baylors internal reports that faulted him in both cases, according to Henderson. The "deadly weapons" were his hands and surgical tools. He saw himself as a brilliant doctor and a brilliant surgeon. For a temporary suspension, the standard is even higher than the boards other enforcement actions. After his wife died, Don Martin found himself at a loss. Neither hospital would talk about Duntsch for this story. Wendy Young, portrayed by Molly Griggs in Dr. Death, was the name of Duntsch's real girlfriend. As they dressed for surgery, Duntsch boasted to Kirby that he was the best neurosurgeon in Dallas. Duntschs license is currently on temporary suspension pending further action by the board. Create a free profile to get unlimited access to exclusive videos, breaking news, sweepstakes, and more! A man who was a victim of other people's bad work and bad behavior," he told Newsweek. 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. Get all your true crime news from Oxygen. On June 26, the board held an emergency meeting and suspended Duntschs license. We may earn commission from links on this page, but we only recommend products we back. Before going to medical school, Duntsch wanted to be a pro-football player. For the first time, the board could suspend without a hearing doctors who constituted a continuing threat to the public welfare, i.e., cases where the public couldnt afford to wait for the full board proceedings. Duntsch, 40, met Wendy, 27, at a bar where she was working as a stripper. That complaint was filedalong with the 6,000 to 8,000 other complaints the Medical Board receives each year, in addition to the thousands of licensure applications the agencys 156 employees must review. Their fellow physicians had found them committing such offenses as malpractice, sexual assault and drug use. But it wouldnt be the end of the trouble between the pair. Kirby had spent 16 years performing general surgery in the Dallas area, in which time hed assisted on more than 2,000 spine operations. The two-week trial especially focused on Mary Efurd's testimony. He had no idea what he was doing. My record is excellent," he told The Dallas Morning News in 2015. In the time between the first complaint to the board, and when Duntsch was finally stopped on June 26, five of his patients were seriously injured and one died. When he arrived in Dallas in late 2010, Duntsch's resume spoke of a skilled neurosurgeon: An M.D. Duntsch was arrested in July 2015. But Young would never get the happy ending she had envisioned with the doctor. They all received the same response Henderson had: Send us what you have, and well get back to you. It was horrible. Like pilot trainingyou dont expect a trained pilot to get drunk and fly his plane into the ground., But its more complicated than that. Per Bustle, Christopher is currently incarcerated at O.B. You know in the beginning he talked about marriage. Ellis Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice in Huntsville and will not be eligible for parole until he is 74 years old in 2045. Duntsch, an engaging and fast-talking son of missionaries, came to North Texas with uncommon credentials. We may earn commission from links on this page, but we only recommend products we back. But more than anything, we don't get to know Christopher Duntsch. In 2011, he founded a neurosurgery practice, Texas Neurosurgical Institute. He said he had no doubt that his son cared about his patients. Nevertheless, Christopher had his medical license stripped in 2013 and was eventually brought to justice after Mary took him to court. Those who met him described him as being fast-talking, confident, and someone who always had a plan to fix patients' ailments, per D Magazine. In 2008 one of his patients died of a prescription drug overdose after he had prescribed her a lethal dose of the painkiller Tramadol. The pair met in 2011 at a Memphis bar, known as the Beauty Shop, according toa 2016D Magazineprofile of Duntschs scandalous medical career. and a Ph.D. from a top-tier medical school, a decade of experience, and a central role in a pioneering stem-cell treatment. When he moved to Dallas in late 2010, Duntsch was 41 years old, fresh out of a residency program at the University of Tennessee Health Science Centers Department of Neurosurgery in Memphis. Dr. Kirby, on his end, called him a sociopath. Those were the words that Christopher Duntsch never wanted to hear. 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. I couldnt believe a trained surgeon could do this, Henderson told me. In 2007, he was found to be leaving presigned prescription pads with his nurse so she could prescribe controlled substances while he was away, according to Public Citizen. Dr. Death is the new true-crime drama on Peacock, based on the 2018 podcast series of the same name. Ill do some crying. He blamed Summers paralysis on Duntschs surgical misadventures, which had led to the artery being cut; the final straw, he wrote in his report, had been the packing of coagulants around the cut, which had seriously damaged Summers spinal cord. Articles must link back to the original article and contain the following attribution at the top of the story: This article was originally published by the, Articles cannot be rewritten, edited or changed beyond alignments with house style books. We have to consider the uncomfortable possibility that Christopher Duntsch is to the medical system what the recent West explosion was to the fertilizer industrya regrettable tragedy, but the price of living in a free-market system. Given the graphic subject matter, if you're squeamish, keep your finger on the "fast forward" button while watching Dr. Death. Why didnt he stop? Young told D Magazine the incident had simply been a misunderstanding after she had given birth to the couples second son and had asked Duntsch to bring Aiden to the hospital to meet his new brother. Doctors, and then, later, lawyers would call the boards investigators and sometimes even the board members themselves, begging them to do something. His report was damning. are both available to stream on Peacock now. His performance, Kirby wrote, was pathetic . When the Medical Board suspended Duntschs license, the agencys spokespeople too seemed shocked. This will not bring my mother back, but it is some sense of justice for the all the families, for all of the victims.. Across two years, Duntsch . As a result, one patient died from a massive blood lost. Dallas Magazine states that Duntsch became key in supplying samples to scientists for research. But Duntsch was an anomaly for another reason: the barrage of complaints to the board. Sometimes hell have bedtime stories and try to be as normal as possible.". So why didnt he stop? Shughart said. He has a job inside the prison. For Mary Efurd, it was sweet justice for the man who ruined her life. Hed made multiple screw holes on the left everywhere but where he had needed to be. The Peacock originalDr Deathis based on atrue story. (And if you want to dive even deeper into the story, you can also watch the new docuseries "Dr. Death: The Undoctored Story" on Peacock, which features interviews with numerous people intimately involved in the case.). In the two years he practiced as a spine surgeon across four Dallas institutions, Duntsch operated on 37 people. It was just one simple procedure before her trip, but Martin would never to make it Antigua or see her husband or two adult daughters again. Christopher Duntsch, 46, was initially charged with five counts of aggravated assault causing serious bodily injury and one count of injuring an elderly person, 1 but the trial focused on the last charge, which alleged that Duntsch deliberately harmed Mary Efurd, then aged 72, in a 2012 operation that left her in a wheelchair. In Duntschs case, we see the weakness of Texas unregulated system of health care, a system built to protect doctors and hospitals. In one, Duntsch tells the story, over stock footage of an operation, of a taxing back surgery he performed on an older woman.

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