He kept a handle of Stoli under his desk and said it was because he used to work with Russians. Lawsuits can cost hospitals millions of dollars and lost credibility, making it easier just tofire the offending doctor. Mary Efurd, 74, was to have two vertebrae fused, linked by a metal plate. Summers declined an interview in Memphis and would not answer questions on the phone. According to Dallas Magazine, a woman named Megan Kane remembered how Duntsch partied with her onhis birthday. You dont get to walk away from two or three years of medical training, in the middle of an internship or a residency, get to take time off and be slotted directly in the position you left in with no questions asked. His childhood was seemingly great. (Neither responded to requests for comment for this story.) But the media definitely played its part sending Dr. Death where he rightfully belongs, life in prison. But they were also, presumably, two consenting adults, and both were, presumably, qualified to fix the pain that was wrecking his lower body. Finally, in July 2015, the Dallas County District Attorneys Office followed through. There was Kellie Martin, who died from massive blood loss after a surgery at Baylor Plano. Joshua Jackson as Dr. Christopher Duntsch Asked if he had a chance to meet with Duntsch, who's now serving a life sentence for maiming Mary Efurd during what should have been routine surgery,. I knocked on my door. Moving made sense for both of them. Anton Floquet/NBCUniversal, I knocked on my door. The procedure was routine and involved removing bone tissue in the spine to alleviate pressure on afflicted nerves. I dont have feeling in my feet, and I will slip and fall off that damn ladder, he says today. Like, he wasnt scared. Surprisingly, his superiors at The University of Tennessee also gave him glowing reviews. In the Dallas medical community, Christopher Duntsch was seen as a rising star. Despite receiving complaints dating back to 2012, the Texas Medical Board didnt revoke Duntschs privileges until June 2013. Over the course of 18-months, the nefarious ex-surgeon performed a spree of botched. (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.) Philip Mayfield experienced back pain and chronic conditions related to his longtime career driving tractor-trailers. He said somebody had been there and they had hit him on the head, she said. But patient advocates and the surgeons that mobilized to rid him of his license say that Duntsch was the perfect storm. Young said Duntschfollowed her and told her he could explain the bizarre scene. Dawsons Creek heartthrob Jackson stars as the titular character of Dr Death, which ended up becoming Duntschs nickname after the accusations came out. His mom was a teacher. Then it just started to all unravel.. Jackson stars as Christopher Duntsch, the titular nicknamed neurosurgeon, in Peacock's limited series based on the Wondery podcast of the same name (and of course the real-life former doctor's . Later, attorneys would sit on the stairwell of her Skillman Street apartment. Hoyles job was to cut Passmore open and sew him up, and on December 30, 2011, he made a small incision just above the 36-year-olds groin and moved the blood vessels and organs out of the way, allowing Duntsch clear access to the lower spine to remove a herniated disc. He was gone until Monday. At Health Grades Duntsch had 4.3 out of 5 stars, "above [the] national average." She was deposed over Skype since, at the time, she was stationed with the Air Force in the Middle East. Henderson was brought in to operate two days later. "Dr. Death: The Undoctored Story" and the scripted series "Dr. Death," starring Joshua Jackson, Alec Baldwin and Christian Slaterare both available to stream on Peacock now. He decided to turn to clinical work. 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. Duntsch allegedly arrivedat the hospital three hours after the surgery wasplanned to start and began the procedure. Duntsch harmed many of his patients, including his childhood friend Jerry Summers. Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 28, 2021 She was a stay-at-home mom to their two children, Preston and Aiden; her income was tied to Duntschs. 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. 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. Kirby reported having direct knowledge of seven patients that Dr. When Mary Efurd could no longer walk, Dallas Medical Center called in Dr. Henderson to salvage the botched surgery. He also had a credit card in his name connected to Duntschs account and would drive him around, balance his checkbooks, pick up dry cleaning. The monster in the white coat is all too real. He says Fennells surgery went so well that he agreed to be in a commercial for Baylor Plano. Theres no blank here for that.. 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. For the DA though she proved to be a good witness. He thought surgery might give him some relief, eliminate the need for drugs, solve both problems at once. 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. After his arrest, he still had those loving parents. He stayed in New York while everyone. 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. When he stepped off the bed for the first time after surgery, the feeling on the bottom of his feet had vanished. Such behavior did not go unnoticed by the other doctors. Duntsch made a major miscalculation when he ventured south into Dallas to practice. Brown had a massive stroke overnight that left her in a vegetative state, and her family chose to remove life support days later. One of the early investors in Duntsch's company Discgenics was Dr. Rand Page. ( Source : instagram ) Young is also the mother of another child with her new boyfriend. To become a neurosurgeon, one typically has to complete over 1000 surgeries in residency, but somehow, reporter Laura Beil discovered that Duntsch only completed 100. Year: 2004-2018 Starring: Michael Peterson Genre: Docuseries Rating: TV-MA Seasons: 1 (14 episodes) Director: Jean-Xavier de Lestrade Trailer: Watch here This doesn . His emails were crazy, Van Wey recalled in the docuseries. With such goings-on, Duntsch got himself kicked out of his own company. Or, they should be: the scientists names are misspelled. Will it help patients protect their rights? Duntsch moved to Colorado to live with his parents, while Young stayed behind in Dallas with the couple's son. Duntsch wrote that he accepted he was a cold-blooded killer. He works out, he reads, he studies the Bible. He was born in Montana, but his family settled in a suburb east of Memphis where the median household income is about $30,000 higher than the rest of the country. According to Texas Medical Board records, Summers vertebral artery was damaged, and he lost more than two liters of blood while intubated. While Ignatova and Kukekov say they were in the labs, Duntsch focused on raising money. Young let him buy her an appletini, and they hit it off. Since no one else knew what was wrong, they couldn't save her. 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. 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. Nerve pain now fires through his back, the result of a screw lodged in a nerve bundle. Talking to the Dallas Morning News in 2014, Duntsch said he provided the test and was clean. Through his career, reports of him doing rounds under the influence were commonplace. After Summers procedure, Morgan says Duntsch was not allowed to operate at Baylor Plano until March 2012. Due to his actions, Brown suffered a stroke that night, but Duntsch didn't responded to hospital pages. However, in the Peacock series, the couple is parents to only one child. The real question is:Why couldn't anyone stop him in time? Duntsch was told to take a drug test but disappeared instead. Was he was only in it for the research prestige and the money? She describes investigators with binoculars camped out on their street in a white van, trying to see into their home. But as Duntsch worked, Hoyle looked over and saw blood and not much else. Dallas County Jail/AP, Duntsch filed for bankruptcy and was arrested in Denver for driving under the influence on Jan. 10, 2014, according to, Ultimately, on that case, he ended up getting 12 months (of) probation and a small fine, Michelle Shughart, assistant district attorney in Dallas County, told, Duntsch is now living out his life behind bars, but Young told CNBC's, starring Joshua Jackson, Alec Baldwin and Christian Slater. Young puts Morgan there, too, although Morgan denied it in her deposition. Morgan says they spent a lot of time in clubs. But police say an email Duntsch wrote in 2011 points to his mind-set in the months before he "intentionally, knowingly and . Again, he never revealed what went wrong to the other staff. The other survivors suffered damage, disability,and excruciating pain. He kind of let himself into my apartment by climbing up my balcony, she said. And not just Dallas County, I don't recall hearing about it anywhere." 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. 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 is a graduate of Evangelical Christian School in the Cordova suburb of Memphis, where he starred in football. 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. They had discovered stem cells in human brain tumors. But Duntsch soldiered on. Some hospitals may be reluctant toreport doctors who have allegedly caused bodily harm topatients. Thats dangerouseven that attitude is dangerous. Duntsch relented, allowing Hoyle to move in, stop the bleeding, and clean out the wound. Christopher Duntsch has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. According to an article by WFAA, Christopher Duntsch's father Don stated his son had called him, completely beside himself, when he botched several surgeries. But she wasnt in the room when he woke up a quadriplegic, telling anyone with ears that Duntsch had been using cocaine the night before the procedure. Becker's Hospital Review covered the 13 worst physicians of 2017, as named by Medscape. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it. Beil is a journalist who has specialized in science and medical writing for 20 years, and lives in the Dallas area where much of Christopher Duntsch's story takes place. I'd call him a sociopath." By the time the Dallas County district attorney's office got involved and brought criminal charges against. Likely due to Duntsch'sattemptto staunch the blood loss, Brown suffered a buildup of pressure in her brain. And yet they occurred in Duntschs operating rooms over a period of just two years. 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. He lost everything, so having to face the reality was very hard for him.. It was a revision of a patient whom he originally operated on at Baylor Plano. Dr. Robert Henderson, a spine surgeon who has practiced in Dallas for more than 30 years, started digging after being assigned corrective surgery on two of Duntschs patients. Its hard to find good conversation with a random person, Young says. Death: The Undoctored Story, available to stream now. The fault also lies with the Texas law. Six weeks after her death on March 12, 2012, the medical examiner ruled her fate an accident. The hospital called Rimlawi when it couldnt reach his colleague. It was something that made us all nervous, but we never had any proof, Boop said in the phone call. 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. In July 2015, indictments came through. He may have figured, at first, that he was protected. Unfortunately, it became the patients' burden to bear. The notorious neurosurgeon was forced to declare bankruptcy shortly after and moved back in with his parents in Colorado. Was this a way of keeping the University of Tennessee's ranking up? The evidence said otherwise. 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. His father, Donald, was a missionary and a physical therapist. You'd think that a surgeon who was this bad would have some mud spattered on him on the internet. At this point, Ive had enough and so I called the police.. Christopher Duntsch and Wendy Young struck up a conversation right away, and within three months, they were dating and living together. Every patient mentioned in this story who has sued, except for Passmore, has settled. Quality Policy. I have lost both companies. He would file for bankruptcy years later, and the filings show that Duntsch has had no managerial role with Discgenics since 2012, when he was removed as a board member and as chief science officer. Joshua Jackson stars as Dr. Christopher Duntsch, a twisted neurosurgeon who goes on a malpractice rampage in the halls of the hospitals that are inattentive and neglectful enough to employ him . She needed drug tests. Young elaborated in a 2016 D Magazine story on Duntschs troubled career that Duntsch told her his attacker had been an investigator hired by an attorney representing his angry patients, but that account was never verified. "The Sun", "Sun", "Sun Online" are registered trademarks or trade names of News . My entire house had been turned upside down.. He was the first surgeon to do so, but not the last. 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. Over this period, Duntschperformed back surgeries that left his patients in a worse condition,paralyzed, ordeceased. Dr Christopher Duntsch is accused of causing agony to countless patients or worse during the three years he practiced medicine in Dallas. Wendy Renee Young met Duntsch at a bar in Memphis. Young says hed been breaking into her apartment, and one day she came home to find him inside, covered in blood. Not a single doctor, surgeon, staff, or the pathologist of the autopsy every [sic] stated that I surgically caused vascular injury, he wrote. Rohr is a very professional man, Passmore says. His mom was a teacher. The Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education has strict rules about residency programs. By December, Duntsch wrangled privileges at Legacy Surgery Center of Frisco, and Kirby, in his letter to the Texas Medical Board, narrated another grim outcome: Jacqueline Troys vocal cord was paralyzed, and her esophagus and trachea had become connected, an unheard of complication. A corrective surgery happened two weeks later, after she arrived at the emergency room of Texas Health Presbyterian Dallas, where Kirby practiced. Christopher Duntsch, once a supremely confident neurosurgeon with a solid rsum and a wealth of potential, fled town in disgrace last year under a scalding cascade . There was Floella Brown, whose sliced vertebral artery triggered the stroke that killed her at Dallas Medical Center. Prodigal Son actress Molly Griggs takes on the role of Wendy Young, who was Duntsch's girlfriend and is the mother of his kids. Duntschs reputation took another dive in April of 2015 when he was arrested for shoplifting at a local Walmart. But Hoyle says an X-ray later showed it was positioned too far to the left. Christopher Duntsch, aka Dr. Death, a former Texas-based neurosurgeon, maimed dozens of his victims and killed at least two. Hospitals are liable only if the plaintiff can prove that the hospital was also malicious, that it knew of the risk and ignored it. The world at large may have never heard of Dr. Death but for Laura Beil. Baldwin, 63, plays a more mature character to his onscreen partner Christian Slaters zany one, with the two pairing up in quest to end Dr Deaths medical career and bring him to justice. She fell pregnant with their first son, Aiden, not long after that. 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. He went back to the sourcethe University of Tennessee Health Science Center. Baylor asked him to resign immediately. But Young said Duntsch wasnt happy at the news of another baby and the couple got into a heated argument, during which Duntsch admitted to seeing other women. 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. She had family in Dallas and decided shed go with him if he chose that city. Mayfield also developed syringomyeliain 2014 - fluid-filled cysts that emerged within his spinal cord, which compressednerves to cause more pain and damage to the sensitive area.