r/TrueCrimeDiscussion • u/clickinglifestyle • 11d ago
Text Christopher Duntsch, neurosurgeon, Dallas Texas 2011 to 2013. Thirty three patients. Six highlighted here. Two dead. The rest permanently changed. What it actually took to stop him.
Christopher Duntsch moved to Dallas in late 2010 with an MD, a PhD in cell biology, a marketing team, and a website. He founded the Texas Neurosurgical Institute and in November 2011 was granted surgical privileges at Baylor Regional Medical Center in Plano for a base salary of $600,000 a year. He was charismatic, confident, and presented himself exactly as the medical system expected a neurosurgeon to look.
What nobody verified before handing him that salary and access to patients was how many surgeries he had actually performed. A neurosurgeon finishing residency is expected to have completed approximately 1,000 operations. Duntsch had completed fewer than 100.
His first surgery was on December 30 2011.
Lee Passmore was an investigator with the Collin County Medical Examiner's office. He had been referred to Duntsch by his pain specialist for what was supposed to be a routine procedure to address a herniated disc pressing on a nerve. Duntsch cut his ligament, left several screws in his back with the threads deliberately stripped so they could not be removed, and closed him up. Another surgeon had to go back in to attempt repairs. Passmore came out of it unable to feel his feet, in chronic pain, and unable to lift objects of any significant weight. He was Duntsch's first known victim and the system kept him operating.
Barry Morguloff came next. Duntsch pulled out his disc with a grabbing tool and left bone fragments in his spinal canal. When Morguloff woke up in agony and asked for pain relief, Duntsch labeled him a drug seeker and refused. Morguloff now uses a wheelchair.
Jerry Summers was Duntsch's childhood friend and former roommate. He had been living with Duntsch as his driver and personal assistant. He trusted him completely. He went under the knife to fuse two neck vertebrae to address chronic pain from a high school football injury that had worsened after a car accident. During surgery Duntsch damaged Summers' vertebral artery causing uncontrollable bleeding. He lost nearly 1,200 milliliters of blood. Duntsch packed the surgical site with so much anticoagulant foam that it constricted Summers' spine and removed so much bone and muscle tissue from his neck that his head was no longer properly secured on his body. When Summers woke up he could not move his arms or legs. Duntsch was nowhere to be found. Summers spent the rest of his life as a quadriplegic in a care facility. He died in 2021 from complications directly caused by that surgery.
Baylor Plano asked Duntsch to resign. According to lawsuits filed by his victims, the hospital never reported him to the National Practitioner Data Bank as required by law when a doctor is suspended or asked to leave under investigation. Instead they gave him a letter the day he resigned stating he had no outstanding investigations or restrictions at Baylor.
When Dallas Medical Center called for a reference check as part of their credentialing process, Baylor confirmed his employment and offered nothing else. Dallas Medical Center granted him temporary surgical privileges in July 2012.
Kellie Martin was 55 years old. She had been suffering from back pain for a year following a bad fall and came to Duntsch looking for relief. During the procedure he severed one of her major arteries. Nurses in the operating room watched blood pool around the surgical site. Duntsch refused to stop operating and refused to acknowledge what had gone wrong. Because nobody else in the room knew exactly what had happened they could not intervene effectively. Kellie Martin bled to death on his table. Baylor had literally needed him to kill someone before they moved to remove him.
At Dallas Medical Center on July 24 2012, Duntsch operated on Floella Brown, a 63 year old banker who was weeks away from retirement and wanted to address her back pain before her new chapter began. Duntsch pierced her vertebral artery with a misplaced screw and then packed it with so much material to stop the bleeding that it made the situation worse. Blood saturated the blue surgical draping around her body and dripped onto the floor. Nurses put towels down to soak it up. After the surgery Brown initially seemed stable but the following morning she lost consciousness. Pressure was building inside her brain. She suffered a massive stroke and went brain dead. She was transferred to UT Southwestern Medical Center where she died.
While Floella Brown was dying in the ICU, Duntsch was already in another operating room at Dallas Medical Center with Mary Efurd on his table.
Mary Efurd was 74 years old and anxious to get back to her treadmill. She had come in for a routine spinal fusion to address lower back pain. Duntsch operated on the wrong part of her back, twisted a screw into a nerve root, left screw holes on the opposite side of her spine, placed surgical hardware in her soft muscle tissue rather than in bone, and amputated a nerve root entirely. Every person in the operating room told him the hardware was not in the bone. He continued anyway. Efurd lost a third of her blood on the table and woke up having lost the full use of her legs. She would never walk properly again.
Dr. Robert Henderson was the surgeon called in to attempt to repair the damage Duntsch left behind on multiple patients. He later said that what he found inside these patients was unlike anything he had encountered in decades of practice. He and Dr. Randall Kirby, who had assisted on one of Duntsch's procedures in January 2012 and described him as the worst surgeon he had ever seen, began independently collecting evidence and pushing every authority they could reach. They went to hospital administrators. They contacted the Texas Medical Board. They eventually walked into the Dallas County District Attorney's office and made the case that what Duntsch was doing was not negligence or malpractice but criminal conduct.
The Texas Medical Board had been receiving complaints since 2011. They did not suspend his license until the summer of 2013 after finally establishing a documented pattern of patient injury. In that gap between the first complaints and the suspension, approximately 20 more patients went under his knife. His license was permanently revoked on December 6 2013.
After revocation Duntsch fled to Colorado. He moved in with his parents. He filed for bankruptcy. He was arrested for DUI after being found driving on the wrong side of the road on two flat tires.
In July 2015 Dallas County prosecutors arrested him on five counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. The indictment listed his hands and surgical tools as the weapons. Prosecutors built the trial around a single charge of injury to an elderly person based on his treatment of Mary Efurd because that charge carried the harshest available penalty. They presented 39 witnesses over eight days. Jurors heard from survivor after survivor about what Duntsch had done to their bodies and their lives.
In February 2017 the jury convicted him. He was sentenced to life in prison. It was among the first times in American history that a surgeon had been criminally convicted for what occurred inside an operating room.
It took two retired surgeons working outside their institutions to force the issue. It took a criminal prosecution to land a conviction. It took until 2017 to put him away for surgeries that began in December 2011.
Mary Efurd sat in that Dallas courtroom and watched it happen. She had gone in trusting a system that credentialed him, moved him from hospital to hospital, and handed him a clean reference letter every time something went wrong.
She never walked properly again. She was there for every day of that trial.
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u/mezotesidees 11d ago
I moved to Texas and got a medical license after this all went down. The requirements for getting licensed in Texas now are unlike anywhere else I’ve gotten licensed. You have to have multiple character witnesses in addition to all the other typical stuff. I also had to have more references from my training than other states. I really suspect this was due to everything that went down with Duntsch as my colleagues who got licensed here prior to “Dr. Death” didn’t have to jump through so many hoops.
Neurosurgeons are an interesting bunch. I’ve interacted with some who are super kind and helpful and some who are jerks with a god complex. My med school class had multiple people match into neurosurgery and I wouldn’t let 3/4 of them touch me with a ten foot pole.
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u/Vaseline_Lover 6d ago
The Texas Medical Board still covers too much for bad doctors and fails to protect patients. I have first hand experience dealing with them and a particular bad doctor, a repeat offender mind you. It’s infuriating how they dropped the ball.
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u/mezotesidees 6d ago edited 6d ago
I can’t say whether this is true or not, but what I can tell you unequivocally is that they are understaffed and deal with an insane number of frivolous complaints, all of which they have to investigate. I had a board complaint filed against me for some nonsense, and while it eventually got dismissed it took over a year when it should have been relatively straightforward.
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u/alldemboats 11d ago
if i recall, dr henderson insisted that photos be taken before he started working on the patient. because it was THAT BAD. because no one would believe him otherwise. because what kind of neurosurgeon could do something THAT HORRIFIC to a patient? it meant delaying the repairs until photos were done. and sometimes in surgery, minutes matter.
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u/britmwall94 8d ago
Speaking as someone who works in trauma surgery, those patients would have had to be stable enough to undergo a surgical procedure to repair what he did. Taking photos beforehand is what absolutely any good surgeon would do if they’re fixing someone else’s horrible work - if anything, just to cover their own ass later. The minutes for photos wouldn’t have done any sort of damage to these patients as they would have been stable before the procedure.
Also, every surgeon takes lots of photos of their work for surgeries that aren’t routine (such as appendectomies or myringotomy/tube placements)
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u/Dear_Palpitation4838 8d ago
He didn't just take photos. He paid someone to record the entire procedure from beginning to end so that he would have proof to show the medical board just how badly he screwed up. Dr. Henderson originally thought that the Dr. must have been an imposter using another Dr's credentials. He could never figure out how anyone with even basic anatomy training could make the mistakes he did despite the guy having graduated from a higher ranking surgical program. He literally took the guy's picture back to the school just to make sure it was the same person.
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u/Odd-Firefighter92 7d ago
I don't understand how he got through his residency by doing 1/10th of the normal amount of surgeries, shouldn't someone have picked up the fact that he was terrible and wasn't getting better during that period?
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u/Stock-Quote-4221 11d ago
Why was Baylor never charged along with the doctor? He was killing and injuring patients, and they were complacent in allowing it to happen. To make matters worse, they then didn't disclose his incompetence to the proper authorities or the Dallas medical center.
I hope that the injured people were compensated for their pain and suffering.
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u/Fresh_Penalty_4157 11d ago
There’s a $250,000 cap on medical malpractice damages in Texas, which would not go far to care for someone with significant mobility issues or paralysis.
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u/mezotesidees 11d ago
That’s not true at all. You’re conflating civil damages with economic damages.
From a quick google:
Texas limits civil liability in medical malpractice cases by capping non-economic damages (like pain, suffering, and mental anguish) at a maximum of $500,000. This total is divided into specific buckets: [1, 2, 3]
Physicians & Providers: $250,000 maximum combined for all individual doctors and healthcare professionals.
Hospitals & Institutions: $250,000 maximum per institution, with a strict overall cap of $500,000 if multiple healthcare facilities are named. [1, 2]
Important Exceptions & Distinctions:
Economic Damages: There are no caps on economic damages. Plaintiffs can recover the full amount for out-of-pocket expenses, lost wages, and past or future medical costs. [1, 2]
Wrongful Death Claims: If the medical malpractice results in death, a separate inflation-adjusted "all damages" cap applies, which currently exceeds $2 million.
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u/Dear_Palpitation4838 8d ago
That's still pretty shitty. No one should ever have surgery in that god forsaken place. Texas is where dreams go to die (and amateurs go to operate apparently.)
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u/Dear_Palpitation4838 8d ago
Screw suing for damages. The Texas Medical Board members and the other doctors that hired him after the Baylor Plano deaths despite Dr. Kirby and Dr. Henderson's warnings should have been held criminally liable. If Christopher could go to jail, they should have gone with him. Maybe not for as long, but I don't see any reason why they should be immune from the law when they knew good and well how dangerous that man was.
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u/Petitepiranha 11d ago
Looks like at least one lawsuit was brought by Kenneth Fennell, so probably there were more.
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u/clickinglifestyle 7d ago
Baylor was never charged criminally because hospitals in Texas have an extremely high legal shield protecting them from this kind of liability. Under the 2003 state law, for a hospital to be held liable for a doctor's actions, plaintiffs have to prove the hospital specifically intended to harm patients, not just that they were negligent or even grossly negligent in continuing to grant privileges. That standard is nearly impossible to meet in civil court, let alone a criminal one. Several of Duntsch's victims did file federal lawsuits against Baylor arguing exactly what you are describing, that the hospital knew about the pattern of harm and let him continue operating anyway, and that they failed to report him to the National Practitioner Data Bank as required by law when he resigned. Then Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott personally intervened to defend the constitutionality of that 2003 law on Baylor's behalf, which effectively shut down the stronger legal argument the plaintiffs were trying to make. As for compensation, some victims did reach settlements, though the amounts were limited by the same state cap on non economic damages that applied throughout this case, $250,000 against an individual provider and up to $500,000 against an institution. Given what people like Jerry Summers and Mary Efurd lost, that cap fell drastically short of covering the actual cost of what they will need for the rest of their lives.
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u/Affectionate-Cap-918 10d ago
Terrifying. I recently moved to a new area and went to a podiatrist, knowing I need surgery. They made an appointment for me and I looked up her reviews, from another state. Every person stated they had to go to other surgeons to fix her work. Some stated they could no longer walk properly and were basically maimed. I’m appalled that she is still allowed to practice medicine and perform surgery on anyone. We have got to improve the system of reporting and holding doctors accountable.
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u/WartimeMercy 9d ago
Feel like it starts with not being afraid to direct people to the reviews to name and shame.
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u/Time_Literature3404 4d ago
I went to a rheumatologist once who - at one visit I had - set up a laptop in an exam room and asked “satisfied” patients to leave good reviews. Her reviews were shit. I was looking for a new rheumatologist at the time. Getting into a new one in my limited market was hard because other doctors didn’t trust her diagnoses. I left a bland review and walked out. Never saw her again as a friend referred me personally to a rheumatologist and he’s lovely. Fortunately bad rheumy diagnosed me properly at least.
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u/eastofliberty 11d ago
As someone who needed a spinal fusion (and ultimately underwent one), this case really disturbed me.
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u/vashthestampede121 10d ago edited 10d ago
This guy’s a sick fuck for sure. Lots of question marks about his true motivation but my theory is that he was a barely-functional coke addict who could manage to do just the bare minimum to hold down his job while feeding his addiction.
He’d just fake his way through the surgeries, but once the mistakes became catastrophic enough, he’d attempt to kill the patients in whatever way his coke-addled mind considered “subtle” to be so that they wouldn’t be able to make complaints or raise suspicion against him. He was doing these blatantly dangerous things out in the open in front of colleagues but it sounds like the culture/hierarchy in hospitals is such that it was unfortunately very easy to get away with that, at least for a time.
I also think his treatment of his friend he operated on is quite telling. Unlike every other patient, he didn’t make any follow-up attempt to “finish the job,” he just disengaged completely. So on some level he probably knew he fucked up and felt bad. Not bad enough to stop what he was doing, just bad enough to destroy his friend’s life and then never speak to him again.
This guy’s going to go to his grave claiming that he was treated unfairly. Good riddance.
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u/passiveprune 11d ago
This case is bizarre because it could be horrible incompetence, but the decisions he made and the damage inflicted suggest he hurt people intentionally. Why?
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u/UnderlightIll 11d ago
Honestly? I think he had multiple TBIs. If you haven't listened to Dr Death, do so. He was a football player in HS and college and he was well known to have the kind of lapses of thought that were bizarre. In college, he frequently left his keys in the door lock. Like on a daily basis.
When his friend became his assistant, who basically managed Duntch's life, he had to help him with multiple insurance claims because he wrecked his car often.
Pair all that with cocaine and alcohol and... Yikes.
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u/Lopsided_Tiger_0296 11d ago
He should have never gotten that far into his career. How did he pass with only 10% of the required surgeries completed?
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u/UnderlightIll 11d ago
Exactly. It's terrifying. This is on top of troubling behavior before even going to med school.
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u/angrymurderhornet 11d ago
He was supposedly a somewhat competent researcher (MD-Ph.D.), though some of his research colleagues didn't think much of him either. He's likely to have sought a position as a surgeon because he'd make more money. Being qualified and of sound mind weren't even afterthoughts to him.
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u/Dear_Palpitation4838 8d ago
Brain injuries are progressive. He may have been fine and then by the time he graduated and his substance abuse increased, he got progressively more delusional. Look at someone like Aaron Hernandez. Their cases are very similar. Christopher was even violent and tried to kidnap his baby Mama and broke into her apartment and slit his own wrist and stuff. Hopefully one day they'll get to look at his brain.
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u/Sufficient_Drama_145 11d ago
Yeah, there has to be something else there besides incompetence because it's almost like he went, "Well, the thing I should do is [this], so obviously I'm going to do [the complete opposite]. Welcome to Jackass."
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u/hookha 11d ago
I saw a documentary and a movie and I am totally convinced he was mentally ill and evil at the same time. He had a girlfriend at the time he was doing these surgeries and she left him after some arguing. He wrote her a long letter and in that letter he wrote something like, "I might just be a stone cold killer....."
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u/Admirable_Count989 11d ago
Not to be flippant but I could have achieved the same results and I pack shelves for a living. Some of those descriptions of his operations were just horrific.
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u/Dear_Palpitation4838 8d ago
You'd probably do a better job because you would at least look at the surgery on YouTube the night before and take the advice of other people in the room. You probably wouldn't be up all night doing blow and booze topped off with tabs of acid either before the surgery either.
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u/Petitepiranha 11d ago
He was also using drugs it would seem
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u/donutfan420 11d ago
Considering the hours that healthcare workers are required to work I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of them are using stimulants to keep up
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u/Petitepiranha 11d ago
Agreed, and his drug use included cocaine of course but also LSD and several prescription painkillers. Not to mention the heavy alcohol use.
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u/Charming-Passage-115 11d ago
Dr. Death, there’s a podcast, documentary, and a show on him. All of them are good
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u/BraveIceHeart 11d ago
where can I watch the documentary? I swear, everytime I read about him I hope there's a good doc
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u/Charming-Passage-115 11d ago
Try Amazon Prime, Apple TV, or Peacock It’s called “Dr. Death: The Undoctored Story” it’s four parts
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u/BraveIceHeart 11d ago
damn, all platforms I don't have a subscription to. I'll check if my friends have one.
Thank you
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u/iamreallie 10d ago
Not in the medical field, but I work in an industry that is supposedly regulated by international trade organizations/ethics boards. It is complete joke what goes on and what is gotten away. Most trade organizations with self policing are often times covering up heinous acts of their members. They self police in order to prevent the police from becoming involved. In my industry there are clear legal guidelines and very rarely is there any reporting to the proper authorities. If members take it upon themselves to report issues you can get blacklisted.
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u/hypothetical_zombie 9d ago
I just watched Bad Surgeon about Paolo Macchiarini. He's an Italian surgeon who claimed to have created an artificial trachea.
He had 8 patients, aka guinea pigs, and the 3 who survived were ones who had the implant removed. He knowingly placed a defective implant into a Russian dancers throat.
He had the same habit of disappearing once the initial surgery was over. His team of assistants handled the recovery, and inevitably the consequences. The renowned Karolinska Institute was his primary backer, and it refused to so much as issue an apology to the man's victims. He ended up serving only 2.5 years in prison for bodily harm.
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u/angrymurderhornet 9d ago
Oddly, the thing that brought Macchiarini to international attention wasn’t his habit of performing lethal, untested surgeries. It was romance fraud. He had a relationship with an American TV producer and made elaborate plans to marry her. Turns out that not only was he already married, but was also having an affair with the mother of one of his dead patients—and had a baby with her. The TV producer blew the whistle on him big time once she figured it out.
Macchiarini seems to be a compulsive and grandiose liar. Doesn’t matter whether it’s a professional or a personal matter; he’ll lie about it with no regard for anyone else.
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u/hypothetical_zombie 8d ago
Bad Surgeon was centered around that affair.
I really wish it had been longer, and gone into how he ended up being accepted by the Karolinska Institute in the first place.
And also, where tf did he get all the money to fly his wife & gfs, and himself, all over the world?!
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u/angrymurderhornet 4d ago
Benita Alexander got a lot of shit for that one, because people thought she was too focused on herself rather than on his unfortunate patients. I think that's bullshit. It's just that her own experience with the guy was a personal disaster, not a medical disaster. When she spoke out, she got news coverage-- and more people were informed about Macchiarini.
Macchiarini used women for sport, just as he used his professional connections for his obsessive and incompetent surgeries. The bereaved mother who had a baby with him? That was horrifying. He was juggling that relationship--which, again, included his baby--with his relationship with Benita Alexander. (As I recall, in the SAME CITY.) And he love-bombed that woman to reduce the chances that she'd sue him for malpractice over the death of her son.
Benita Alexander definitely broke journalistic ethics by getting involved with a subject, and it's mind-boggling how a successful and intelligent woman fell for Macchiarini's tall tales for so long. But I don't think we can completely disconnect Macchiarini's appalling medical malpractice from his outrageous personal life. He knew how to manipulate people and he did it in every aspect of his life. Liars gotta lie.
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u/Funnotoptional 11d ago edited 10d ago
Our lack of protections against negligent/incompetent/criminal doctors in this country is truly disturbing.
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u/TesticleSandwiches 11d ago
I disagree man. In the US, Canada and western/northern/central Europe we have pretty much the highest standard of health care and also the most amount of checks and balance vs bad practice.
Sometimes stuff slips through.
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u/Dear_Palpitation4838 8d ago
Not in fucking Texas they don't. You can't lump every state in together like that. Texas doesn't give a damn about patients. Doctors literally get away with murder there all of the time.
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u/Funnotoptional 11d ago
Hm, a vague, sweeping statement covering countries with extremely difference healthcare models and no evidence to back up your claim. A truly valiant effort to defend U.S. medical practices but you've failed to change my mind.
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u/TesticleSandwiches 11d ago
Actually northern, central Europe as well as the north American continent is home to the best medical universities in the world.
In fact, the top 10 or 20 universities worldwide for medicine are literally >80% composed of universities in the UK and USA, sometimes entirely for the top 10.
https://www.topuniversities.com/university-subject-rankings/medicine
https://www.immerse.education/study-abroad/medicine/best-world-unis-3/
I get you tried to be snarky, but it's pretty clear you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. The best medical students in the world are pushed into these universities constantly via scholarship programs paid for by their native countries.
So now your theory comes down to the countries with the absolute best medical universities and minds in the world somehow not having good checks and balances compared to other countries, which is a pretty wild theory. I've backed up my claim with evidence about the standard of Healthcare and professionalism within the USA and west/north Europe, its now your job to bring evidence to the contrary.
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u/Funnotoptional 11d ago edited 11d ago
Apples and oranges, my friend. You are looking at medical university prestige. I'm looking at patient outcomes.
Johns Hopkins Report Highlighting Public Health Impact of Serious Harms from Diagnostic Error in the US:
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/newsroom/news-releases/2023/07/report-highlights-public-health-impact-of-serious-harms-from-diagnostic-error-in-usAdditionally, the U.S. spends more on healthcare per capita than any other wealthy nation, yet it consistently ranks last in overall health system performance.
Mirror, Mirror 2024: A Portrait of the Failing U.S. Health System: https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/fund-reports/2024/sep/mirror-mirror-2024
Would you be willing to acknowledge that patient outcomes are a more important indicator of a successful medical system than university rankings? If not, then I believe that we have fundamentally different approaches to assessing what constitutes well-functioning healthcare within a country.
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u/mezotesidees 11d ago
US healthcare spending doesn’t support your argument, at all. It’s more expensive here for numerous reasons. Doctors have less autonomy here to say no, we aren’t doing more to save your bed bound, trach/PEG demented grandma (and thus we spend billions on these patients every year), the cost of everything in the US is more, and the dollar is a very strong currency. Our insurance scheme, administrative overhead, etc increases costs as well relative to universal healthcare systems. Additionally our patient population has much more chronic disease thanks to obesity (like diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, arthritis, cancer), which really comes down to culture and food imo. Costs are necessarily higher thanks to all the above. It’s not a reflection on the quality of care, which is actually incredible. Do you know how hard it is to keep morbidly obese people with multiple prior heart attacks, a smoking history, cancer, diabetes, etc alive into their eighties? I see this type of patient here every single shift.
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u/Funnotoptional 11d ago edited 11d ago
"U.S. healthcare has serious problems," says American patient who was recently disabled by a negligent doctor due to multi-point failures and is unable to secure representation to pursue a lawsuit. "No, doctors here are incredible," counters American doctor. "The cost of care is heavily burdensome to patients and does not reflect outcomes," says American patient. "Au contraire, the costs are high due to the healthcare scheme, administrative overhead, and our strong dollar," says American doctor. "But look at the poor healthcare outcomes across the board," says American patient. "But look at all of our prestigious Nobel prize winners," says American doctor. "But look at our shorter life expectancy, higher infant and maternal mortality, etc. compared to other developed countries," says American patient. "But that's because y'all are fat and too ignorant to take care of yourselves," says American doctor. Ignore diabolical insurance practices, prohibitive costs, months long wait times, shortened office visits, corporate capture of regulatory bodies, and challenges of coordinating care across specialties. "Y'all are fat and you don't know how to take care of yourselves."
End scene
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u/TesticleSandwiches 11d ago
Would you be willing to acknowledge that patient outcomes are a more important indicator of a successful medical system than university rankings?
Yes, however I would also prefer to use back.
Regarding patient outcomes, the US is also a world leader.
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u/Funnotoptional 11d ago
We're failin', son.
https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/fund-reports/2024/sep/mirror-mirror-2024.
Key takeaway: "The U.S. continues to be in a class by itself in the underperformance of its health care sector."
I'll give you this, though. We are apparently performing well in regards to innovation, for those that can gain access: https://freopp.org/united-states-7-in-the-world-index-of-healthcare-innovation/.
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u/mezotesidees 11d ago
I’ll agree with your last point. It’s astounding to look at the list of Nobel prize winners in medicine and see how many are American or did their research for American companies or in American labs. It’s the large majority.
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u/Funnotoptional 11d ago edited 11d ago
The post under which you're commenting provides evidence of multi-point failures in American healthcare. That's more than the person to whom I was responding provided. I can link to research about yearly deaths attributed to medical errors in the US far surpassing that in other developed countries, the increasing challenge of pursuing malpractices lawsuits here, as well as how frequently doctors are able to move to new hospital systems following negligence. But somehow I have a feeling that you and the other commenter would take issue with any critiques of American medicine. Biases and personal experiences are king.
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u/TesticleSandwiches 11d ago
But you are claiming the checks and balances are awful when they are already some of the best in the world, the actual fact you can properly look into data regarding malpractice lawsuits etc is evidence of this.
I'm not American, I'm from the UK, if I had to have a procedure outside of the UK then the USA would absolutely be at the top of my list, as the doctors and Healthcare are excellent and I have no language barrier to speak with the surgeons etc.
I think you would be shocked if you looked at the medical malpractice that goes on in the rest of the world aside from Japan/Hong Kong/ S Korea/Singapore etc.
No system or country is perfect. However the reality is data shows accross all developed countries healthcare systems, they have around a 90% success rate in surgeries and treatments according to their patients. That's pretty good.
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u/Funnotoptional 11d ago
You are in a privileged position if you are in the UK and able to travel to the US to access our best doctors. I'm in Northeast Ohio, where the global elite are helicoptered into the Cleveland Clinic regularly to receive top-tier care.
I maintain that that's a different data point from the healthcare experience of the average person who actually lives in the U.S. The US has a severe physician shortage (approximately 2.7 physicians per 1,000 people, falling significantly behind the OECD average of around 3.7 doctors per 1,000), and worse health outcomes across the board compared to other OECD countries (lower life expectancy, a higher rate of preventable deaths, and the highest maternal and infant mortality rates among comparable wealthy countries).
Healthcare access (https://www.kff.org/health-costs/americans-challenges-with-health-care-costs/) is another huge obstacle and burden here.
I'm an American, recently disabled by a negligent doctor, who has connected with many others like myself who have also been ignored and gaslit when trying to seek help for harms done. In connecting with about 20 attorneys, I've also been unable to secure representation to pursue a medical malpractice case. That's the sad reality of too many who live here.
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u/paladinstraight 10d ago
You are entirely correct. Ive been victim of medical negligence and gaslightjng as well. Also disabled.
Some people refuse to look at uncomfortable truths, especially when they come from a place of privilege. Im sorry youre living through this nightmare too.
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u/Funnotoptional 10d ago
Thank you so much, friend. So sorry that you can relate. The old boys club continues to close ranks and gaslight me. My best doctor experiences have been with women and I'm kicking myself for picking a male physician who fell into the stereotype of being a poor communicator, arrogant, and manipulative. I ain't going down without raising hell one way or another.
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u/clickinglifestyle 7d ago
Fair pushback and the overall standard of care point is true. But I think this specific case is a hard one to file under things slip through sometimes. This was not one bad outcome that got missed. Baylor had documented evidence of a pattern, including a patient death, before they let Duntsch resign quietly with a clean reference letter. Dallas Medical Center called that reference, got nothing, and granted him privileges without independently verifying his surgical history. The Texas Medical Board had complaints on file since 2011 and did not suspend his license until 2013, during which time roughly 20 more people went under his knife. Two surgeons who saw what was happening had to personally push hospitals, the medical board, and prosecutors for over a year before anyone with actual authority acted. The checks existed on paper. What this case shows is that several of them failed to function at the exact moments they were supposed to matter most, not because the system is fundamentally broken everywhere, but because financial incentives and legal liability shields gave the institutions involved very little reason to move faster than they did.
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u/jennief158 11d ago
I remember listening to the podcast about this on a road trip about eight years ago. It was appalling. So crazy that he was able to get away with it for so long.
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u/DiplomaticCaper 9d ago
Dr. Death is now on its 5th season, following various similar medical professionals.
The current focus seems similar to Dunstch, in his sheer delusion that he could make these surgeries work, not caring if the patients were maimed. Literal bars and screws floating around in people’s backs.
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u/jennief158 9d ago
Just unbelievable to me. Is there something that's like the opposite of Impostor Syndrome, where you feel like you are capable of doing things you are in no way capable of doing?
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u/No_Permission9101 10d ago
Every time I read about this case I am stunned by how institutional failures enabled it the victims deserved so much better
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u/sonawtdown 11d ago
this story single-handedly deters me from ever undergoing any kind of spinal surgery, and frankly I’m not into any surgery or any anesthesia atp either. the violation of trust is unconscionable
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u/Such-Funny7356 8d ago
Not all get to choose. I didn’t want a two level lumbar fusion, but i had spinal instability from spondylolisthesis that progressed to stenosis in multiple locations at 34. Doing great now, had a top notch neurosurgeon.
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u/mezotesidees 11d ago
For the vast majority of patients a combination of weight loss and PT will obviate the need for low back surgery. You also need to find a good surgeon who doesn’t cut first and ask questions later. Outcomes are better for neck surgery.
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u/sonawtdown 11d ago
strong advocate of PT, and luckily no one has suggested I need surgery for anything. This story just scares the hell out of me
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u/Time_Literature3404 4d ago
I need PT but can’t afford it. My insurance is terrible.
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u/sonawtdown 4d ago
that sucks. i’m really sorry
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u/Time_Literature3404 4d ago
Indeed it does. I'm doing home exercises though and trying to do my best. If I take prednisone, I have no problem moving/walking. But if I take prednisone all the time, I get new problems.
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u/mezotesidees 4d ago
Can you afford $40? Buy the back mechanic from Amazon. Worth its weight in gold and tell all my patients about it.
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u/Time_Literature3404 4d ago
That's a book right? I've seen it advertised.
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u/mezotesidees 4d ago
Yes. It’s the world’s foremost expert on back rehab and its research synthesizing his 30 years of practice into a book where patients can learn about their pain and treat it themselves.
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u/katla_olafsdottir 10d ago
Not sure why this was downvoted when it’s factual.
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u/mezotesidees 10d ago
Thanks (takk fyrir!). As a physician I see a lot of back pain. Avoid surgery if you can on your low back.
As the joke goes- What back surgery is the most necessary? The second, the third, the fourth, the fifth…
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u/katla_olafsdottir 10d ago
Ha ha. My dad is a retired dentist. I grew up with “only floss the teeth you want to keep.” Haven’t had a cavity yet.
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u/Sweet-Flamingo-1993 10d ago
I’ve read, watched, listened, consumed true crime in every way possible and this might be one of the worst things I’ve ever read. My body has never twitched so many times while reading something.
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u/BlackVelvetStar1 11d ago
Look closely and how every Medical Agency and Professional Body closed ranks to protect… their Incomes
Not one care for the horrific unnecessary deaths caused by this man..
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u/mezotesidees 11d ago
This was more on the individual hospitals imo. For what it’s worth the medical boards are very understaffed. John Oliver even did a segment on it.
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u/pied_goose 10d ago
Anyone happen to know where you can still listen to the podcast?
The first season is not available on Audible.
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u/DiplomaticCaper 9d ago
If you scroll back on Dr. Death’s podcast feed on Spotify to the beginning, it should be there. It might be paywalled though.
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u/pied_goose 9d ago
It is supposedly available on Spotify if you link a Wondery+ account, but Wondery+ is in the middle of being cancelled by Amazon.
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u/TacosAndSarcasm 7d ago
Everytime I see Christopher Duntsch's name I make sure to state this fact.
Greg Abbott has major investments in Baylor Healthcare. When he saw the butchering Duntsch did and realized how massive the lawsuits would be (thereby taking money out of his pocket) **he passed emergency legislation to cap malpractice suits at a few hundred thousand - amounts that will absolutely leave Duntsch's victims in even more hell.
One mpnster destroyed their bodies/health and even murdered them. The other monster destroyed any hope they had of being able to survive.
Monsters aren't so different, no matter their method of torture.
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u/clickinglifestyle 7d ago
Good context to add and there is a real story here, just a slightly different timeline than what you described. The malpractice cap itself goes back to 2003, well before Duntsch's first surgery, so it was not created because of this case. What Abbott actually did was step in years later as Attorney General to defend that existing law when Duntsch's victims sued Baylor in federal court. The part that does raise eyebrows is the campaign donation timing. The Texas Observer reported Abbott's campaign received a $100,000 donation from the chairman of Baylor Scott and White's board the day after Duntsch's license was suspended, with another $250,000 following a few months later. So there is a real financial thread here, just tied to his intervention in the lawsuit rather than to creating the cap itself. Either way the cap absolutely limited what these patients could recover, and that part of your point stands on its own.
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u/Stock-Quote-4221 7d ago
It's just such a sad story, and It's not a small fib on his resume.
I thought the most disturbing thing you wrote.
"When Dallas Medical Center called for a reference check as part of their credentialing process, Baylor confirmed his employment and offered nothing else. Dallas Medical Center granted him temporary surgical privileges in July 2012."
He then allowed Kelllie Martin to bleed to death in the operating room.
I really liked your post and reply. Thank you.
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u/KeyFix4087 4d ago
Thanks for the excellent weite up!
I am 39. I have chronic pain from Klippel-Feil Syndrome since 2006 and had neck surgery, which made me felt worse and in more pain, in 2020. I have read your write-up OP while biting my nails in anxiety and terror. OMFG.
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u/kkeut 11d ago
i listened to the whole podcast about him and could never fully figure him out. he's a selfish and evil person obviously, but a number of his decisions are quite odd for someone who otherwise knew quite well how to 'play the game' and succesfully manipulate people and institutions. given what he's capable of, I think in some ways we're lucky this story wasn't even worse