So what's scarier to me is, it's not that the systems broke down, it's that they actually operated mostly as they're supposed to. Dirty John ended up being wildly successful and is currently being adapted for a television show on Bravo. Of the 37 patients Duntsch operated on in Dallas over about two years, 33 were hurt or harmed in the process. Here are seven chilling statements from that email: Unfortunately, you cannot understand that I really am building an empire, and I am so far outside the box that the earth is small and the sun is bright. Christopher Duntschs late friend and victim, Jerry Summers, claimed Dr. Death gave him his first hit of acid.. And so, I think thats what made him an attractive hire. The last hospital to employ Duntsch was the now-shuttered University General, where he botched another surgery after he mistook a patients neck muscle for a tumor. Well, it was a team effort. He was affable. More reviews here. Fact Check: Was Dr. Oz Responsible for Cruelly Experimenting on Dogs? Dr. Death's Christopher Duntsch Is Now Serving a Life Sentence Because whether it be a hospital network, whether it be a medical board, whether it be the legal system, it doesn't actually place the little guy first. I do believe he was born as a narcissistic sociopath. Death' Review: Joshua Jackson Is Terrific in Terrifying Peacock Series That's as Sharp as a Scalpel. Duntsch took careful steps to put across the image of a hardworking, competent and caring person and doctor. He is currently appealing this sentence. In 2013, things came to a tragic head. Who Is Wendy Young, The Mother Of Christopher Duntsch's Children, And MACMANUS: You said it right there, it was a gift. Death': "He Thinks He's the Hero of This Story", So when it comes to the question of how he was able to get away with it for so long, that involves a lot of breaking down the administrative and legal aspects that keep a doctor like him in a position of doctoring. Its interesting, because when I heard at the premiere, people were reacting to things that I didnt anticipate them reacting to. When people said, You werent going to be good enough, he outworked that and he made it happen.. Then it seemed that it was nothing more than boring to youso then I thought it was my vodka bottle and neurostimulants, but I watched you closely and besides concern for my healthy you were chill and rolled with me on that., What I am being is what I am, one of kind, a mother f****** stone cold killer that can buy or own or steal or ruin or build whatever he wants.". But from the inside, he sees himself as the victim of circumstance. You have these compelling heroes in Henderson and Kirby that are unlike, in my opinion, unlike other quote-unquote "heroes" in the true crime space, because these are two who are taking down one of their own. Right? The real Dr. Henderson and Dr. Kirby could never answer that question, to this day. He was then brought on board at the Dallas Medical Center where he continued his carnage. Nurse who worked with Dr. Duntsch recalls his experiences - YouTube Im really appreciative to the producers for even entertaining the discussions with me as much as they did, because lets be honest, I dont know anything about making a podcast. Duntsch had his surgical rights temporarily suspended after his botched surgery on Summers and his first patient back was 55-year-old Kellie Martin. And its all because of one surgeon named Christopher Duntsch a.k.a. I knew I had to get across that even if you think you know the story of Christopher Duntsch, you dont really know the whole story. Dr. Death executive producer explains how Christopher Duntsch could have avoided prison The charismatic neurosurgeon was actually a successful researcher before he starting killing people in the. Inside The Death Of Chris Benoit, The Professional Wrestler Who Killed His Family And Then Himself, Archaeologists Just Uncovered A Massive Roman Phallic Carving In Spain And It Might Be The Biggest Ever Found, What Stephen Hawking Thinks Threatens Humankind The Most, 27 Raw Images Of When Punk Ruled New York, Join The All That's Interesting Weekly Dispatch. I kind of wanted there to be three hours more of that, but when I was listening to it with some friends, they were putting their hands over their heads and saying No, no, no! They never turned it off though, which I think is telling, but it seemed like they were having a hard time listening. Creator/Executive Producer Patrick Macmanus (Homecoming, Happy) knew he had a ready-made hit in Dr. Death when he first learned the story of Christopher Duntsch, the Texas neurosurgeon who permanently maimed and killed patients during routine procedures. Making a splash: A deep dive into the live-action, Alec Baldwin and Christian Slater team up to take down a dangerous surgeon in, Joshua Jackson replaces Jamie Dornan in Peacock's, Dr. Death review: Joshua Jackson is chilling. Coverage of Duntschs case, the podcast series and the now-streaming Peacock series all make sure to underscore that his story is part of a major systemic failurea common theme in true crime stories. Dr. Death: The Undoctored Story starts streaming on Peacock Thursday, July 29. And so, the producers started Googling and decided that he would make a good story, and then they contacted me because they were looking for a local reporter in Dallas who could work on the story. Duntsch, hes an outlier for sure, but he exposed a lot of larger truths about the healthcare system. Stars of 'Tiger King' : Where Are They Now? The charismatic neurosurgeon was actually a successful researcher before he starting killing people in the operating room. So I have to constantly remind myself here that no matter how well-intentioned or well-meaning any doctor or any hospital that I'm interacting with, ultimately they're selling me something. Dr. Death: How Many People Did Christopher Duntsch Kill - POPSUGAR From 2011 to 2013, dozens of patients in the Dallas area woke up after their surgeries with horrible pain, numbness and, paralysis. I think that it would do a disservice to the story to try to find the pretty pink bow to tie on the story, to let people know how this creature could possibly be. Theyre not just props in your story, they are real people whove lived this, and you need to just be respectful of that, and not fall into tropes, and not exaggerate what theyve been through, but also not diminish it. But not in front of my lawyers and accountants and partners and employees and friends. I spoke to her by phone this week about the series itself, and about the challenges of working in a new medium. I mean you cant really boil it down. His very first operation at the hospital would once again turn deadly. Yeah, hopefully even just asking that question today almost feels a little bit dated. 'Grey's Anatomy' Cast: Where Are They Now? Christopher Daniel Duntsch was born in Montana on April 3, 1971, and raised alongside his three siblings in an affluent suburb of Memphis, Tennessee. Was this familiar territory for you? I have 1M in debt, 10M invested, and 22 years of pain in misery already on the table", 2. Because Im on there clearly, but when you can tell it through the tape, its so much better. Its hard for me to pinpoint any one thing, because it was so many things. So many podcast series, from Serial to S-Town to the incomparable In The Dark, set out to solve a mystery. You have to be very careful with that. The podcast series and ProPublica report that Duntsch was ordered by the university to take a drug test, but managed to avoid it. When he arrived in Dallas in late 2010, Duntsch's resume spoke of a skilled neurosurgeon: An M.D. As is shown in the series, he drank too much and shoplifted hundreds of dollars worth of items, among other erratic behaviors. WFAA-TVChristopher Duntsch a.k.a. And so, that was one of my goals to start out with, is to just report the hell out of it. Summers is a former patient of Christopher Duntsch, who was nicknamed "Dr. Death." Duntsch is serving a life sentence in prison after killing and maiming more than 30 patients while working in the . It would be easy to say he is a psychopath who was doing all of this on purpose, because that's easy for us to wrap our brains around, right? So, the other big mystery as you already pointed out was like, how did the medical system allow this to happen? How did this happen? Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can't justit doesn't come out wholly formed. Death' Review: Joshua Jackson Is Terrific in Terrifying Peacock Series That's as Sharp as a Scalpel. All Rights Reserved. But I started listening to a whole lot more podcasts after. And also, I knew that I was dealing with a story that probably half the listeners from the first episode were going to Google and find out the end. The value of the doctors, right? At first I thought it was simply my world and that it was too much for you. Based on true events, as documented in the Wondery podcast, the series stars Joshua Jackson as Christopher Duntsch, a Texas physician who repeatedly crippled or killed patients in his care through surgeries which were either grossly incompetent or malicious. I have to confess, I had not listened to Dirty John before they called me. Life After "Death": Lethal Surgeon Sentenced to PrisonWATCH NEXT: Attorney who represented Dr. Duntsch's patients discusses her cases (3 of 5) https://youtu.. Do you mind mentioning any of those? And frankly, if it hadnt been for a couple doctors who were watching him, who knows? And then the rest were injuries. But at the end of 2012, Kirby was called to help yet another patient whod had her vocal cords and an artery cut during a neck surgerya surgery he discovered had been done by Duntsch at another clinic. 'Dr Death' Stars Share Why They Think Christopher Duntsch - TheWrap And so, I think if you translate that to his desire to always want to be on top and to always want to be the most prestigious, I would guess that, that had probably more to do with it than the money. Tulsa Hospital Shooting Suspect Was a Patient Who Had Recent Back Surgery and Targeted His Doctor: Cops, One Brother Was a Hero, One Was a Serial Killer: New Docuseries Explores the Stayner Family's Plight. The doctor denies doing anything wrong. He's a psychopath. Duntsch is a former Dallas neurosurgeon who, through . His very first operation at the hospital would once again turn deadly. Dr. Death in surgery. Podcasts status as a new medium, in which the rules have yet to be codified crystallized for me a few weeks back, when I sat in a dark screening room at United Talent Agency with a group composed largely of fratty, agent-y men in suits listening to a non-fiction account of an evil surgeon. Ellis Unit outside of Huntsville,Texas. Now, INSDE EDTION tracks the surgeon down to get some answers. But I think, it is good. Right? So we had all of the tools at our disposal. The nightmare at the center of Dr. Death, a new Peacock drama inspired by the 2018 true crime podcast of the same name from Wondery, involves a surgeon who seems intent on using his scalpel to destroy the lives of his patientsand a medical system content to let him skate by. I wanted to make it easy for myself. When you visit this site, it may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. And I need to think of it, not as a patient, but as a customer, which is a very difficult thing because you're in an extremely vulnerable place anytime you're interacting with the medical system. And then in this case, it seems like if there is a mystery its just, what is this guys deal? He shared: We were like 19 years old, I remember we were driving down the road, and he was like, You wanna take a hit of acid., And I was like, Yeah, Ill take a hit of acid with you. And we popped, hit acid., Jerry revealed: I had never taken a hit of acid before. The first one is the most graphic. The value of the institutions was placed above the value of the patients. And thankfully, knock on wood, I've never had some spectacularly horrific outcome, like Christopher Duntsch, but I grew up in Canada and I'm Canadian. RELATED: 'When They See Us': Joshua Jackson, Blair Underwood & Christopher Jackson on the Netflix Limited Series. That made it easy for him to hide from his past for a certain period of time. 'Dr. Death': AnnaSophia Robb on Playing ADA Michelle Shughart - Newsweek He is currently housed in the O.B. Death, The New Terrifying Podcast About A Criminally Inept Spine Surgeon, The Best Coachella 2023 Performances Were Reflections Of Pure Joy, My (Non-Anonymous) Ballot For The 2023 Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame, HBOs White House Plumbers Delivers An Absurd Historical Snapshot And A Knockout Performance From Justin Theroux, The Rundown: Ted Lasso Has Created A Delightful Little I Think You Should Leave Conundrum, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. And that was a revolutionary act. "License to Kill" and "Botched" host advises on how - YouTube For example, I never knew before I started this that I had such strong feelings about sound effects. Floella Brown went under Dr. Death's knife in July 2012 and shortly after her surgery, she suffered a massive stroke caused by Duntsch slicing her vertebral artery during surgery. The first season of Dr. Death, which launched in 2018 and ran for seven episodes, examined the life and horrific crimes of Christopher Duntsch. The Peacock limited series Dr. Death is in many ways much more a horror story than a drama, but the villain at . Were you in the car listening to the podcast on the way to the grocery store and you said, 'Oh my God, I've got to make a limited series out of this?'. (He was later let go from the company over money issues). It. He chose Dallas after learning that Young had family near the city and she offered to go with him. But from the people that I talked to, it wasnt so much the money, it was more that neurosurgeons are really prestigious, and theyre like one of the top people Like, if you go back and listen to what [Duntschs college friend and football teammate] Chris Dozois says, and how [Duntsch] was not great at being a linebacker, but he wanted to be the best one. If people come away from the show saying, "We don't know who Christopher Duntsch was," that was the intent, right? And so there was no world where they were going to let him speak to me. I know youve done this for a long time, but what are some of the things you have to be careful about in reporting a story like this? But even inside it, there was some times where sequences would line up as chronological, but the timeline was a lot to keep your head around. His father was a missionary and physical therapist and his mother was a school teacher. The medical boards will protect themselves. He is absolutely a narcissistic sociopath. I gathered very quickly that everything that he had accomplished in sports had come with the sweat equity, one old teammate told ProPublica in 2018. But everyone around him, not wittingly or willingly, ended up sort of encouraging all of his worst attributes. So, theyre not as bad. In 2018, he filed for an appeal which was rejected by the court. I will say I'm a hundred percent hypochondriac. So my follow-up question to that is how has the show changed your relationship to going to the doctor? There isn't a question that there is a larger theme at work in the show, which was ultimately something that drew me to the show, which is that Christopher Duntsch doesn't just wear a black hat. They were trying to process the horror that was Christopher Duntsch as they were going along, because they couldn't answer the question that we began with: "Why does he do what he did?" 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 four-part docuseries features old footage and new interviews to tell more of the story about the neurosurgeon who was sentenced to prison after maiming or killing more than 30 patients. So many of these serialized investigative podcasts, they tend to grow out of some kind of mystery. Follow her on Twitter at @lizlet. I could only go as far back as his Memphis days, so I did go back to Memphis, and I did talk to quite a few people who knew him in high school. After a fall in her kitchen, Martin experienced chronic back pain and sought out surgery to alleviate it. I was really lucky that the first people to ever call me up and say, Do you want to make a podcast? were really good at it. Right? In late 2010, Dr. Christopher Duntsch came to Dallas to start a neurosurgery practice. Like, I could hear the people around me reacting. She was a National . One woman remembered Duntsch taking LSD and cocaine throughout one night, before leaving the next morning for his hospital shift. No. Christophers baby mama Wendy Young described him and Jerry as the party boys, and Jerry described just how true that was. JACKSON: Well, it's not. Death' Review: Joshua Jackson Is Terrific in Terrifying Peacock Series That's as Sharp as a Scalpel. In July, he performed an operation on a woman who lost a tremendous amount of blood and lost consciousness upon waking up after surgery. White men also have stories to tell. They dont want to go participate in any extraneous activities, and he was totally fine going to work.. His surgeries actually get even worse. This time on 53-year-old Mary Efurd. and Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee Health Center. 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 Duntschs story takes place. Kane also recalled a cocaine- and LSD-fueled night of partying between her, her ex-boyfriend, and Duntsch where, after the end of their all-night party, she saw Duntsch put on his lab coat and go to work. I know you talked to a lot of his college friends, how far back into Duntschs childhood did you want to go? Magazines, Or create a free account to access more articles. The docuseries is a real-life companion piece to Peacock's scripted crime drama, Dr. Death, which premiered this summer. JACKSON: Well, actually, I think it's even one step scarier than that. Duntsch, 44, is being held inthe Dallas County Jail on $600,000 bail on charges involving the death of one patient and the injuring of four others. Randall Kirby, Robert Henderson On Dr. Death Christopher Duntsch | True and a Ph.D. from a top-tier medical school, a decade of experience, and a central role in a pioneering stem-cell treatment. There was one. "Dr. Death" Memphis victim dies years after botched surgery JACKSON: Yeah. No, for me, I love that stuff. Dr. Death: Patrick Macmanus on Understanding Christopher Duntsch Well, thank you for your time. Dr. Death in surgery. Like, let the story speak for itself. He thinks he's the hero of this story. And there were a couple of reasons for that. And I dont know that he really ever even wanted to be a neurosurgeon. In order to tell the story they hired Laura Beil as the lead reporter. Over the course of two years, Christopher Duntsch operated on 38 patients in the Dallas area. He graduated from a top-tier medical school, was running research labs, and completed a residency program for neurosurgery. And then I believe it absolutely became a full-blown fire when he went through school and went through the different hospitals, administrations that he went through because he wasn't stopped. That was the thing that people around me were really reacting to. Here, Macmanus talks about how he first discovered the ghastly true story behind Dr. Death which stars Joshua Jackson and drops today on Peacock -- and whether he thinks Duntsch is truly crazy. My instinct was that the only way, that this man has to be evil, because there has to be a reason why all of this spectacularly bad stuff happened and the simplest and easiest answers he's evil. Dr. Death is a new true-crime series on Peacock about the story of Dr. Christopher Duntsch. The next question is how he was able to continue performing surgeries even as he butchered patient after patient. There were some doctors and some plaintiffs attorneys, and later on journalists, who were all working to try to stop this guy. It's a complicated plank that he tried to walk. (An exclusive trailer is shown below.). Christopher Duntsch was allowed to keep on moving because he himself represented value in the specialty that he was in, in frankly, the face that he presented, he was valuable to these institutions. Now, a podcast called Dr. Death is breaking down the deranged surgeons criminal acts and shows how drug abuse and blinding overconfidence led to big trouble for the patients who found themselvesunderneath the spiraling doctors knife. The first operation he conducted in this capacity was to fix a womans compressed nerveduring the surgery, he cut an important vessel in the womans spinal cord and she bled to death. And by not stopping a narcissistic sociopath, you're encouraging a narcissistic sociopath. "This defendant single-handedly. For you, coming at it with the job of trying to dramatize this story, what was key to approaching that? So the Canadian system is very different than the American system. I can't think of a more enormous responsibility than trying to find an actor to play that role. And it isn't like cops taking down one of their own. 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. Duntsch was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. Kyler Alvord leads PEOPLE's politics coverage as a news editor for the brand. He performed only one surgery with the Minimally Invasive Spine Institute. And never when i not standing there. It doesn't place the patient or the victim at the front, it protects the institution first and then somewhere down the line comes the patient. There, other surgeons quickly realized their new colleague was not just arrogant about his abilities but an actual danger to his patients as the casualties began adding up. Dr. Death in surgery. Yeah, I mean, what strikes me about it so much is that, you can see that, and you can also see why we need systems that clearly weren't working in this case. And I didnt need to go into all the gory details. I think Ava is the first person to have a completely female directed show on Queen Sugar. And in fact, when they called me, I was kind of like, You know Im a print reporter, right? But they were great, they were willing to kind of show me what I needed to know in terms of audio and interviewing for audio, and making an audio podcast. While Baylor-Plano conducted an investigation of Duntsch and his cases, and found that he would need to be let go, Duntsch was not technically fired from the hospital. Each very different. It mightve taken longer. Dr. Death season one review: a true crime podcast is even scarier - Vox The best of these series retain the lurid appeal of the news magazine while offering the opportunity to go deeper; to tell stories that resonate as much as they titillate. I did talk to as many of his high school friends as I could. You can't ask for a story that is so ready-made. They never would've made it to 38 surgeries. I dont know, but that would be my guess. Right? Then check out the horrifying story of Simon Bramhall, a surgeon who admitted to burning his initials into patients livers. Two patients died, one from significant blood loss after the operation and the other from a stroke caused by a cut vertebral artery. He wanted to be the one that was front and center and really out there. Christopher Duntsch was just a regular guy who became Dr. Death after he decided to be a neurosurgeon. 'When They See Us': Joshua Jackson, Blair Underwood & Christopher Jackson on the Netflix Limited Series, 'Dr. Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? On paper, Duntsch was a star pick for any hospital system once he completed his residency, thanks to years of research and study of the use of stem cells and several strong recommendations from his prior supervisors. Death' Review: Joshua Jackson Is Terrific in Terrifying Peacock Series That's as Sharp as a Scalpel, 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' Characters Ranked by Likeability, 10 Sitcoms With Content That Hasn't Aged Well, 'Baby J' Doesn't Show Us the Real John Mulaney and That's a Good Thing. The screen, almost vestigial now, displayed a still graphic. Sure, yeah. And so, he was an attractive hire. Christopher Duntsch was sentenced to life in prison in February 2017 for his heinous acts. He toldLocal Memphisin 2014 that he woke up from the surgery paralyzed, which ultimately left him a quadriplegic. The intent of the writing was to leave it sort of an open question for audiences to draw from it as they saw. It sort of just blew that flame into a full-fledged conflagration -- not because the hospitals were necessarily to blame, but his education. Right? This meant Summers could still feel pain, but was unable to move from the neck down. RELATED: Joshua Jackson on Playing 'Dr. I think Patrickhe chose a very difficult path of how to tell this story, particularly by centering Duntsch. And then for his early background, I relied on the testimony that his parents and his family gave at his trial, where they talked about his history. Many in the crowd wore the custom eye masks wed been given, to add to the audio immersion effect. Planes dont crash because one big thing goes wrong. The former neurosurgeon is currently serving a life sentence for the maiming of Mary Efurd, one of. Death.'. Plenty, plenty, plenty, plenty. Well, the whole email thats coming up in episode three Its hard to pick out because it just goes on and on. Yeah, that was a concern. These are doctors who didn't sign up to become heroes, right? 7 chilling thoughts of jailed neurosurgeon Christopher Duntsch The True Story Of Christopher Duntsch, The Killer Surgeon Known As Dr. It was a conscious choice from the very beginning to not show the surgeries until the finale. Dr. Death's Best Friend Jerry Summers In His Own Words | True Crime Buzz Dr. Death was fired before the end of his first week for the damage hed inflicted on Brown and Efurd. Was that something that he knew? Theres a lot of attorneys not allowing things in this story it seems like. So what it meant for the particulars of our show is that we had three excellent directors. Those were way more telling than the emails, I thought, because if you just read through those you get kind of a look into his mind. Alec Baldwin and Christian Slater join the cast as two doctors who try to stop Duntsch from causing further harm. Dr Death received a life sentenceafter being convicted of maiming one of his patients. JACKSON: I mean, I think, leaving aside our show, it means that finally the industry as a whole is starting to redress some of the failures of imagination that have led us into a predominantly male, predominantly white-dominated creative industry. Once you got past Mary Efurd, I really didnt need to get into all that, because you got it. I listened to this with some friends at one point, and there was a lot of cringing at the medical butchery descriptions. Dr. Death: Where Is Christopher Duntsch Today? - Grunge
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