He listed the cause of death as therapeutic misadventure, according to his report. Christopher, known as Dr Death, was Jerry's friend and the surgeon who performed the botched operation on him in 2011 Credit: Dallas County Sheriff's office. The former neurosurgeon is currently serving a life sentence for the maiming of Mary Efurd, one of the . Jurors heard from Duntschs father, mother, brother and a family friend who sought to appeal to the sympathies of the jury. Christopher Duntsch - Wikipedia Many of his patients suffered severe spinal cord damage, resulting in paralysis and pain severe enough to render painkillers ineffective. Martins surgery was Duntschs last at Baylor. At his home and office, my calls rang and rang before going to voicemail boxes that were full. Meanwhile, he was continuing to get patients, continuing to operate. I left with him and believed in him and then, you know, he just kind of fell apart., Duntschs disturbing fall from grace is also chronicled in the new Peacock seriesDr. He was convicted of injury to an elderly person in the 2012 surgery on Mary Efurd that put her in a. Duntschs license is currently on temporary suspension pending further action by the board. Hospitals can get all of the benefit of an expensive surgeon practicing in their facility and little of the exposure. "We were told Duntsch was one of the best and smartest neurosurgeons they ever trained, as they went on at length about his strengths," representatives from Baylor Regional Medical Center told Pro Publica in an email. Henderson says that Duntsch told the Dallas Medical Center administration about the Martin and Summers cases, but explained that the outcomes hadnt been his fault: Summers, he said, had been paralyzed by a bad drug interaction, and Martin had died because of complications from anesthesia. Hed made multiple screw holes on the left everywhere but where he had needed to be. (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.). "Ninety-nine percent of everything that has been said about me is completely false.". She said Duntsch came highly recommended. The Texas Observer is known for its fiercely independent, uncompromising work which we are pleased to provide to the public at no charge in this space. I dont know what it is, she said. Christopher Duntsch's case was the subject of Wondery's podcast, "Dr. Death," which was released in 2018. are both available to stream on Peacock now. Who Is Wendy Young, The Mother Of Christopher Duntsch's Children, And With the exception of pain management clinics and anesthesiologists, the board doesnt have the authority to inspect a doctor, or to start an investigation on its own. Then he waited for several more hours until the nurses came out to tell him and his daughters that Kellie Martin was dead. Prince Charming, Im gonna change your life, Wendy Young said of the promising start to her romance with Christopher Duntsch. Was it that he was unqualified and completely unaware of regional anatomy? We may earn commission from links on this page, but we only recommend products we back. She was 55 and had been experiencing persistent back pain after a fall at home. But Baylor didnt hold him to that. And Ill reflect back on how difficult those first months were afterwards. "When asked about Dr. Duntschs weaknesses or areas for improvement, the supervising physician communicated that the only weakness Duntsch had was that he took on too many tasks for one person.". We talked about marriage pretty quickly. But according to Dr. Robert Henderson, another neurosurgeon at Dallas Medical Center, the comprehensive information Baylor sent over when Duntsch applied consisted of an email saying that there were no issues with Duntschs performance, that hed been on staff and had voluntarily resigned. The board cant revoke a license without overwhelming evidence, and investigations can take months, with months or years of costly hearings dragging on afterward. Dr. Robert Henderson, a Dallas-based orthopedic surgeon who worked to alert authorities about Duntsch, had his own take. Kayla Keegan leads Good Housekeepings editorial growth strategies in the partnership, news, social, branded, membership and newsletter spaces. Because he owed people a lot of money. So while hospital administrators did a deeper background examination, they granted Duntsch temporary privileges. According to Baylor, Duntsch had clinical privileges when he resigned. To suspend a license, as one Medical Board staffer explained, there has to be enough evidence to prove a pattern. Duntschwho was just completing a prestigious spine surgery fellowship in Tennesseebought Young an appletini and the two immediately clicked. Dr. Christopher Duntschs patients ended up maimed and dead, but the real tragedy is that the Texas Medical Board couldnt stop him. Duntsch was once an up and coming neurosurgeon. He explained the disturbing visit by saying he had been attacked by an investigator for an attorney hired by one of his patients, although that account was never verified. The conversation took place in January 2013, after it had become clear that Duntsch would practice until someone stopped him, six months before anyone actually did. The answer, in both cases, seems to be very little. So to be able to do that much wrong, I felt that he must have known at some point in time how to do it right. At every step of the way, you would have to know the right thing to do so you could do the wrong thing, because he did all the wrong things.. When the Medical Board suspended Duntschs license, the agencys spokespeople too seemed shocked. According to The Dallas Morning News, he will be up for parole in 2045, when he is 74. In one, Duntsch tells the story, over stock footage of an operation, of a taxing back surgery he performed on an older woman. After Christopher performed a spinal surgery on Mary in 2012, Mary suffered crippling pain afterward. He wanted to live the high life and a neurosurgeon makes big bucks. Ill do some crying. Why Trust Us? The procedure can improve stability in the back, according to the Mayo Clinic, and relieve pain. The boards mandate, spelled out in the Medical Practice Act, recognizes a doctors license as a hard-won, valuable credential. I think what happened is that as things began to fall apart, the only thing he knew was to try harder, Don Duntsch said. The surgery had gone so badly, Kirby later wrote to the Medical Board, that the rest of the OR team had to physically restrain Duntsch from continuing. As they dressed for surgery, Duntsch boasted to Kirby that he was the best neurosurgeon in Dallas. During surgery, Duntsch had sliced through one of the arteries alongside Martins spine, as he had with Summers. Two weeks later, on June 14, 2013, Kirby got a call to come to University General to do a recovery surgery on one of Duntschs patients. Wendy Young, portrayed by Molly Griggs in Dr. Death, was the name of Duntsch's real girlfriend. For one, there was alleged drug and alcohol abuse. But the board is limited in its ability to investigate malpractice. Over this period, Duntsch performed back surgeries that left his patients in a worse condition, paralyzed, or deceased. We felt confident too.. The surgery, he said, beaming into the camera, was a resounding success. The operation was a spinal fusion in which two vertebrae are joined; surgeons use a metal plate to help hold the vertebrae together. Forty-five minutes passed, then an hour, two hours, with no word. 'Dr. Death': Who Is Jerry Summers and What Happened to Him? - Newsweek Their romance moved. Once the case has been put together, the investigators will make a recommendation to the board itself, a group of 12 physicians and seven laypeople appointed by the governor. He was listed as a pre-business major, a university spokesperson confirmed Thursday. My whole world crashed, he said. Not only shouldnt he be operating, he shouldnt be making any decisions about treatment or pathology. It had no effect whatsoever.. Out of his 38 surgeries, only three had no complications. Daniel Reece, Michael Rice and Christopher Ochwat, Reece left in January, while the other two were sacked by the management for reasons still unclear. 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. Duntsch continued to operate in the year it took for the board to investigate him. The problem, she said, isnt staff. The Legislature has also made suing hospitals difficult. After losing his license, Duntsch filed for bankruptcy and returned to Colorado, where his parents live. Texas number of license applications has grown every year since 2003, when medical malpractice damage caps passed. On the online doctor-rating site Healthgrades.com, he had 4.5 stars out of five. Elena Nicolaou is the former culture editor at Oprah Daily. He had amputated a nerve root, Henderson said. Kirby said Duntsch had problems at nearly every step of the operation. Christopher Daniel Duntsch (born April 3, 1971) [1] is a former American neurosurgeon who has been nicknamed Dr. D. and Dr. Death [2] for gross malpractice resulting in the maiming of several patients' spines and two deaths while working at hospitals in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. 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. 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 saw himself as a brilliant doctor and a brilliant surgeon. Victim of Real-Life 'Dr. Death' Believes There Are Others Like Him Out The "deadly weapons" were his hands and surgical tools. He had no idea what he was doing. The jury found Duntsch guilty of injury to an elderly person (Efurd), and sentenced him to life in prison. If you were a patient in the Dallas area around this time looking for a spine surgeon, there would have been nothing to suggest that Duntsch was a risky choice. Following Summers surgery, Baylor Plano suspended Duntsch for 30 daysafter that, he was supposed to be supervised on every surgery he performed, according to Kirby. He then had trouble moving the plate into place. Efurd woke up after surgery in horrible pain, barely able to move her legs. That July, Duntsch was firing off panicked emails to his business partners at 4 am. Speaking to Inside Edition, they called him "a snake in the grass," "a monster," "drug addict" and even "a psychopath.". He was smart. The board fined him $3,000, assigned him a monitor, and required him to take classes in medical recordkeeping. In November 2011 he was granted surgical privileges at Baylor Regional Medical Center of Plano. Prior to her new position, she was the Senior News and Entertainment Editor for the brand, covering and editing all things in the entertainment, pop culture and celebrity world forGood Housekeeping. And the words that his patients and their families desperately wanted to hear. Dr Death Christopher Duntsch's late patient Jerry Summers claims killer Since receiving his life sentence, Dr Death is currently housed in the O.B. The board, when it finally handed down an order in 2011, faulted him for both deaths. Duntschsmedical privileges were revoked by the Texas Medical Board in June of 2013 and Duntschs life continued to spiral from there, according to D Magazine. In a specialized field like neurosurgery, that means further months of delay. A charismatic, charming monster but still a monster but he saw himself as the hero of his own story. This is a once-in-a-generation occurrence, that we have someone off the rails this badthis is why no one saw this coming., Most of the doctors on the Medical Board, he pointed out, arent surgeons. This is an almost impossible standard to meet, and it has left hospitals immune to the actions of whatever doctors they bring on. "He works out, he reads, he studies the Biblehell call and say goodnight to his boys. Why Did Dr. Death Do It? 'Dr. Death: The Undoctored Story' Explains Plano's Baylor hospital faces hard questions after claims against He said he had no doubt that his son cared about his patients. At the time, Duntsch had been fielding offers in Dallas, San Diego and New York from medical centers eager to have a neurosurgeon with his seemingly impressive resume on staff. Every patient that I interviewed told me that one of the first things Dr. Duntsch would tell them when they initially met was that he was the best surgeon in Dallas," Henderson, played by Alec Baldwin in the show, told People. Culture TV Peacock True Crime. "Based on a hit podcast and inspired by the terrifying true story of Dr. Christopher Duntsch, a young and charismatic star in the Texas medical community," Peacock explains about the series. AnnaSophia Robb Stars In New Series Dr. It was a minimally invasive surgery, Kirby said, that killed Kellie Martin. Like pilot trainingyou dont expect a trained pilot to get drunk and fly his plane into the ground., But its more complicated than that. Up until 2003, medical care in Texas was regulated by a system of checks. For a temporary suspension, the standard is even higher than the boards other enforcement actions. They just cant comprehend that an M.D.-Ph.D. neurosurgeon could do what Christopher Duntsch was doing. And all the while, until their cases are resolved, doctorseven those accused of the most heinous malpracticecan continue to practice. The protections make some sense. Friends since they played football together in high school, Summers helped Duntsch stay organized while he worked in the lab during his residency. According to ProPublica, most neurosurgery residents perform 1,000 operations; Duntsch completed 100. Who Were The Victims Of Dr. Christopher Duntsch? | True Crime Buzz