GQ calls it the scariest podcast of 2019. In April 2015, he was arrested for stealing $887.30 in Walmart merchandise: five pairs of sunglasses, five watches, two pairs of shoes, four ties, two briefcases, a wallet, cologne, necklaces, a walkie-talkie. She had family in Dallas and decided shed go with him if he chose that city. According to Dallas Magazine, Dr. Christopher Duntsch talked a big game. (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.) Duntsch told Morgan a different story. According to Duntsch's colleagueDr. Randall Kirby, Glidewell's procedure was so botched that"Duntsch was forcibly restrained from continuing the surgery by the [operating room] team.". He decided to turn to clinical work. His work ethic, character, and ability to get along with others were beyond reproach, Robertson wrote. He thought surgery might give him some relief, eliminate the need for drugs, solve both problems at once. Dallas, Texas 75201. Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 28, 2021 He had a room upstairs in the Plano house. Kane dated Summers for a year. Link your TV provider to stream full episodes and live TV. Like Summers, Floella Browns vertebral artery was damaged, causing massive bleeding. They met as Duntsch was looking for opportunities in an operating room somewhere. Christopher Duntsch, aka Dr. Death, a former Texas-based neurosurgeon, maimed dozens of his victims and killed at least two. Young was 27 when they met; Duntsch was 40. Santa Clarita Diet's Dominic Burgess plays Jerry Summers, a former patient and best friend of Dr Death's. But then he gave Passmore the card of a neurosurgeon named Christopher Duntsch. We certainly would not knowingly allow one person to compromise the level of quality care that we have worked so hard and invested so much to achieve for our patients and our community.. Christopher Duntsch was disorganized and undeliberate. Duntsch began cheating on. His fellow neurosurgeons found him to be fast-talking and cocksure, a bit of a loner. 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. Morgan says they spent a lot of time in clubs. Duntsch was described asa precocious boy and a bright student. 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. In April 2012, just over four months removed from that initial surgery, Passmore returned to work. The original patent still holds, and hopefully, Discgenics would be able to break out of the Dr. Death shadow todo some real anti-cancer work instead. So the hospitals he worked for knew of his carelessness and sociopathic behavior in the OR. Even the hospitals that he worked for kept enabling him, according to a report by the Dallas County prosecutors. And yet nearly all who met him said they liked him immediately. Sort of. But patient advocates and the surgeons that mobilized to rid him of his license say that Duntsch was the perfect storm. Passmore later learned that a ligament in his leg had been severed. They listened, judged and found Duntsch guilty, and sentenced him to life in prison, reports USA Today. There are 31 people left alive today, irreparably damaged by Dr. Death's grievous malpractices. And not just Dallas County, I don't recall hearing about it anywhere." 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. Today, Duntsch is serving a life imprisonment term in a Texas prison, and he's now the subject of an NBC Peacock netstreaming series featuring some big-name, A . Young let him buy her an appletini, and they hit it off. But it was growing increasingly clear that his opportunities were running out. On paper, the 40-year-old man who arrived in Dallas in the summer of 2011 was a completely different Christopher Duntsch than the one who was introduced to the public after more than a dozen allegations of severely botched surgeries. Duntsch suspected that this had something to do with his vodka bottle and neurostimulants. It said he was $1 million in debt. Portrayed in the Peacock miniseries, "Dr. Death," the Dallas spinal surgeon is responsible for helping stop Dr. Christopher Duntsch, who was sentenced to life in prison in 2017 after leaving . Duntsch could have turned it into something good and meaningful. The damage is irreversible. On April 9, 2013, Mayfield underwent surgery performed by Duntsch to remove a troublesome disk from his spine. Like, he wasnt scared. He also vibrateshis chest shakes, his right hand jitters. At the time, Duntsch was accused of injuring 33 out of 38 patients in less than two years before the Texas Medical Board revoked his license. Vascular surgeon Mark Hoyle, who assisted with the operation, later recalled that Duntsch seemed oblivious to considerable bleeding. He rode the desk until he couldnt, when things in the county got too busy and all the examiners were required to take calls away from the office to cover the 200-odd scene visits. So, I went back to Dallas. 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. Wendy has reportedly been keeping a low-profile life since ending her relationship with Duntsch and since he went to prison. Duntsch also received 40 percent of all revenue he generated beyond $800,000 each year. This was the time when Dr. Christopher Duntsch started to turn intoDr. Death. They had discovered stem cells in human brain tumors. Unfortunately, Martin and Brown were not alive to tell their tale. He stayed in town for his undergraduate degree, emerging from the University of Memphis in 1994. He argues that the patients were just telling stories and that Passmore was fine after his operation. Christopher Duntsch - AKA Dr. Death - spent 18 months asa practicing surgeon atmultiple Texas hospitals until hehad his license revoked in 2013. Duntsch's license was finally revoked in June 2013, after he had killed two patients and maimed 31 others. Seven more doctors voiced complaints before TMB finally canceled Dr. Death's license. Christopher Duntsch was born in Montana and spent most of his youth in Memphis, Tennessee. But then came that fax, and he saw Duntschs name next to Kellie Martins. Dr. Death might not have cared about being a surgeon, just the prestige that came with it. And there were plenty of other signs as well. DR Death, Peacocks new limited series starring Joshua Jackson, is based on a true story, and we have your look at photos comparing the cast with their real-life counterparts. He signed a physician services agreement on May 24, 2011, with Rimlawi and Wons Minimally Invasive Spine Institute. He was constantly involved in research, and, around 2006, he saw a way to commercialize discoveries by renowned Russian stem cell scientists Valery Kukekov and Tatyana Ignatova, a husband-and-wife team. 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. This could be path-breaking in the future ofcancer treatment andDr. Duntsch sniffed out the opportunity right away. The disc was pressing on a nerve, which caused the pain. Mary Efurd, 74, was to have two vertebrae fused, linked by a metal plate. Theres no blank here for that.. Then it just started to all unravel.. Oxygen Insider is your all-access pass to never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more. In a statement, the hospital said it cooperated with the Texas Medical Board when asked, and did not file its own complaint because it was aware someone else already had. Passmore later discovered that, less than a week after his second surgery, Duntsch had operated on 45-year-old Barry Morguloff. The hospitals didnt do their due diligence until it was too late, and those who couldve spoken up didnt. The first of these had been college football. There is no way to communicate what happened there, without a 20-page document of disclosures and events and responsible parties, Duntsch once wrote of Brown and Efurd. And yet they occurred in Duntschs operating rooms over a period of just two years. Michael Rimlawi and Douglas Wonthe pair then owned the Minimally Invasive Spine Institute in North Dallasrecruited him from Memphis to join the practice. He was later sentenced to 120 days in jail for the attempted theft, according to court documents obtained by Oxygen.com. A string of arrests for DWI, shoplifting, and more followed. However, in the Peacock series, the couple is parents to only one child. Duntsch pleaded not guilty. For the last three days, jurors listened to testimony in the . On paper, the 40-year-old man who arrived in Dallas in the summer of 2011 was a completely different Christopher Duntsch than the one who was introduced to the public after more than a dozen. He ran two labs, is listed as one of three inventors on a successful patent, raised millions of dollars in grant funding, and once gave a tour to the governor of Tennessee as he explained the stem cell research occurring at the university. He is a graduate of Evangelical Christian School in the Cordova suburb of Memphis, where he starred in football. Its hard to find good conversation with a random person, Young says. If a person died in the fourth-floor apartment of a complex in Collin County, Passmore was the one who hiked up those four flights with somewhere around 20 pounds of gear on his back and got that body back down. Duntsch ended up slicing her vertebral artery, stopping blood and oxygen flow to her brain. Some hospitals may be reluctant toreport doctors who have allegedly caused bodily harm topatients. He didnt not want to. They eventually went back to his home, dancing to music under a disco ball he had in his office. She worked with Dr Henderson and Dr Kirby to bring Duntsch to justice, talking to everyone from his life, both from after he became a doctor and from when he was still training to be one. Copyright 2023, D Magazine Partners, Inc. We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. It wasnt his invention, Kukekov says. 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. When Duntsch tried to reposition it, he stripped a screw; the cage wasnt going anywhere. 2022-10-28 16:00:03 - Paris/France. Young was evicted at least twice. 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.. I dont have Facebook, I dont Myspace. Neurosurgeon Duntsch Found Guilty, Faces Life in Prison, In Duntschs Assault Trial, Questions About His Role After Patient Deaths, In Second Day of Testimony, Doctor Calls Neurosurgeon Duntschs Outcomes Catastrophic. He lost everything, so having to face the reality was very hard for him.. He seemed really distraught and I was scared, she said of the father of her two children. The other survivors suffered damage, disability,and excruciating pain. He has a job inside the prison. He may have figured, at first, that he was protected. July 19, 2021 The former neurosurgeon Christopher Duntsch was finally brought to justice after injuring and maiming over 30 of his patients during surgery and allegedly causing the deaths of two more. Duntsch has maimed or killed. Hoyle, the surgeon who exposed the incision in Passmore, had also filed a complaint with the board. But what Duntsch hadnt counted on was the Dallas County District Attorneys Office. He performed his first operation at Dallas Medical Center on July 24, 2012; the hospital issued temporary privileges while it verified his credentials. At first, Passmore didnt think much about the way Duntsch and his assistant, Kimberly Morgan, interacted. An "In Memoriam" tribute for him is shown at the end of the final episode of the Peacock series. Since no one else knew what was wrong, they couldn't save her. And yet, the names of the latter are incorrect and misspelled. Neurosurgeon residents need to complete 1,000 surgeries as training requirements. Martin paid with her lifebecause her doctor was too proud to say he screwed up. In November 2011, Passmore was hooked on prescription opiates. Brings new meaning to the phrase Sunday Funday. 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. Surprisingly, his superiors at The University of Tennessee also gave him glowing reviews. During this time, out of three procedures, one patient died and another was partially paralyzed. According to an arrest report obtained by the outlet, he had been driving on two flat fires and had two empty bottles of Mikes Hard Lemonade in the vehicle. 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. He had a lot of animus to me personally. There are some who believe that he never wanted to be in the ORat all. According to his lawyer, Duntsch was a scapegoat. But Hoyle says an X-ray later showed it was positioned too far to the left. A grand jury returned five indictments of aggravated assault and one of harming an elderly person. One surgeon described these as never events. They shouldnt ever happen in someones entire career. In July 2015, he was indicted by a Dallas County grand jury on six counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon (his hands and surgical tools). She was dancing at a strip club then, and Duntschs business problems were growing more severe. The intended 45-minute procedure stretched over an hour before Duntsch finally emerged and told Mayfield's wife the surgery was a success. There is no face to the monster you are hearing about, the one destroying lives. Hed found a few months that were not accounted for in Duntschs educational history. There was Kellie Martin, who died from massive blood loss after a surgery at Baylor Plano. He hadnt seen it with his own eyes. By November, he had surgical privileges to operate on patients. Duntsch wrote that he accepted he was a cold-blooded killer. In February 2017, Duntsch, 50, was convicted of a first-degree felony for intentionally injuring an elderly victim. She didnt think much of it at first. When he finally came to the hospital, he busied himself with another patient, also on the DA's list, Mary Efurd.