As of this date, there have been no summary or administrative restrictions or suspension of Duntsch’s medical staff membership or clinical privileges during the time he has practiced at Baylor Regional Medical Center at Plano.”. His surgery, an anterior lumbar spinal fusion, took place on Jan. 11, 2012. His girlfriend, Wendy Young, had a second son in September of 2014. That’s how he came across Dr. Christopher Duntsch in the spring of 2013. By then, Brett Shipp, a reporter from Dallas’ ABC affiliate, had gotten tips about the board’s slow-moving investigation of Duntsch from a friend of one of Duntsch’s patients and a plaintiff’s attorney. The nursing staff put down towels to soak it up. “Very shortly after I contacted them,” Shipp said, “they suspended his license.”, On June 26, Duntsch was ordered to stop operating. He didn’t wear underwear. Kirby said he argued with Duntsch, even offering to take over, but Duntsch insisted he knew what he was doing. But hours later, Duntsch came out and told Glidewell’s wife that he had found a tumor in Glidewell’s neck and aborted the procedure. In his 2017 deposition, Summers acknowledged he made up the pre-surgery cocaine binge because he felt Duntsch had abandoned him, as both his surgeon and his friend. He admitted to making a "small error" because of the stress he was under, but it left Efurd with partial paralysis and constant pain. We have official accounts for ProPublica and ProPublica Illinois on both Twitter (. Glidewell found four- and five-star reviews of Duntsch on Healthgrades and more praise seemingly from patients on Duntsch’s Facebook page. Dr. Jennifer L. Muller MD has an overall patient experience rating of 3.7 out of 5, which was calculated from 6 reviews compiled from online sources. In court, her family said they withdrew life support a few days later. Once, he stopped by Duntsch’s house to pick up some paperwork. He deflated before their eyes. “We are like a cash cow.”. And waited. Days later, his license was temporarily suspended citing his treatment of Summers, Martin, Brown and Glidewell. There was no way Glidewell could have known from Duntsch’s carefully curated internet presence or from any other information then publicly available that to be Duntsch’s patient was to be in mortal danger. As at the University of Tennessee, he stalled at first, telling administrators he got lost on the way to the lab. He put them in bags he swiped from a register. “It took a toll on my back even with back supports and exercise and a strong core,” Morguloff said. They patented technology to obtain and grow disk stem cells, and in 2008, they launched a company, DiscGenics, to develop and sell such products. I asked him why he’d trusted Duntsch to be his doctor. Even though he was living in Colorado, he continued to return to Dallas to see his two sons. “When asked about Dr. Duntsch’s 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.”, In 2010, Boop faxed a recommendation for Duntsch to Baylor-Plano, checking off “good” or “excellent” in boxes asking about his skills and noting, “Chris is extremely bright and possibly the hardest working person I have ever met.” Another supervisor, Dr. Jon Robertson, who was an old family friend of the Duntsches and an investor in DiscGenics, noted on his recommendation that Duntsch had an “excellent work ethic.” (A University of Tennessee attorney said Robertson could not respond to questions.). It’s also a virtual employment guarantee for a doctor with Duntsch’s credentials, Dallas neurosurgeon Dr. Martin Lazar said. He had undergone successful back surgery once before, but the pain had returned. He passed a separate psychological evaluation and, after three weeks, was allowed to operate again, but he was told to stick to relatively minor procedures. The subject line of the email was “Occam’s Razor.” Occam’s razor is the idea that the simplest explanation for anything is most likely the right one. After a breath test, Duntsch was arrested for DUI and sent to a detox facility. “If Dr. Duntsch was unable to get privileges at other hospitals, theoretically Dr. Duntsch could have sued Baylor and said: ‘Look, I could be making $2 million a year here. Despite Brown's deteriorating condition, Duntsch continued the operation on Efurd and put a screw in the wrong spot. You have to credit us. (The Troy family would not comment for this story.) A new podcast series highlights the story of a neurosurgeon accused of maiming and killing several patients in North Texas before he was stopped and sentenced to life in prison. He would remain there for months. Last year, Duntsch was convicted and sentenced to life in prison, becoming the first doctor in the nation to meet such a fate for his practice of medicine. One day, he will likely be in a wheelchair. The next patient Duntsch operated on was Barry Morguloff. D Magazine, Dallas’ monthly glossy, published a cover story in 2016 with the headline “Dr. “Nothing has changed from when I picked Duntsch to do my surgery,” Glidewell said. All but one of those cases have been closed. In sworn testimony from 2014, an ex-girlfriend of one of his closest friends described a drug-fueled, all-night birthday celebration for Duntsch about midway through his residency. In January 2014, he was pulled over by police in southern Denver around 3:30 a.m. Officers said he was driving on the left side of the road with two flat tires. “I was just really mad and hollering and wanting him to be there,” Summers said. At one point, Hoyle said, he either grabbed Duntsch’s scalpel or blocked the incision — he could not remember which — to keep Duntsch from continuing the procedure. Why did it take so long for the systems that are supposed to police problem doctors to stop him from operating? “He had his goal, his sight on a goal and whatever it took to get there,” said one classmate, who did not want to be named. When he saw them, he said, “I’m really thinking that some kind of travesty occurred.” That impression only grew when Henderson reopened Efurd’s freshly made incisions the next day. https://www.healthgrades.com/providers/jennifer-miller-257wy Kirby took the comments to the district attorney’s office. (Rimlawi declined to comment for this story.). One of the early investors in DiscGenics, Rand Page, said he was initially impressed with how Duntsch presented himself and the company, but as time passed, Page became wary of his new business partner. Dr. Death describes Summers as effectively decapitated by the surgery. Glidewell, now 54, had been living on disability because of an accident a decade earlier. Doctors who watched Duntsch perform surgery or went in behind him to repair his mistakes reported grabbing instruments away from him and filing complaints about him to little avail. He is the new executive director of the Zen Hospice Project in San Francisco and a palliative care specialist at UCSF Medical Center. He called Boop at the University of Tennessee to ask about Duntsch’s training and spoke to officials at Baylor-Plano hospital. According to a report by Public Citizen, a consumer watchdog group, about half the hospitals in the country had never reported a doctor to the databank by 2009. That same morning — with Brown still in the ICU — Duntsch took another patient into surgery. DERBY-Miller, Jennifer Dawn (Ramsour) 46, passed away Thursday, March 21, 2019. The email was submitted as evidence in his case. “He is among giants up there, and he was trying to tell me over and over again how most of the spine surgery here in Dallas was being done inappropriately and that he was going to clean this town up.”. “So none of us rushed to judgment,” Zeitler said. But according to records gathered by the DA, by the time Duntsch finished his residency and fellowship, he had operated fewer than 100 times. He said he tries not to think about Dallas anymore. Then it took almost another year for the board to investigate, with Duntsch operating all the while. “We were told Duntsch was one of the best and smartest neurosurgeons they ever trained, as they went on at length about his strengths,” they said in the email. “I, with reluctance, went down there and met the Glidewell family and took care of him,” Kirby said. In a deposition he gave later to the district attorney, Summers said he asked Duntsch to operate on him because he had chronic pain from a high school football injury that had gotten worse after a car accident. Kill me. That morning, “We pulled out of the driveway, and soon as we started going forward down the street, a black cat ran across the front of the car,” Glidewell said. In a 2012 phone call recorded by a Texas doctor who contacted Boop because he was alarmed by Duntsch’s surgical errors, Boop acknowledged that an anonymous woman had filed a complaint against Duntsch, saying he was using drugs before seeing patients. “Immediately, Jeff was: ‘Where is the doctor? Duntsch left Baylor Plano with a letter that stated his record was clean and he was given temporary privileges at Dallas Medical Center. Revelers drank and used cocaine and pills, she said. Then Lazar and other experts walked the jury through a litany of Duntsch’s surgical missteps. Thank you for your interest in republishing this story. The nurse realized he’d seen that hole for three straight days — Duntsch apparently hadn’t changed his scrubs all week. It was at University General that Glidewell had his neck surgery, knowing none of Duntsch’s by then two-year history of botching operations. It likely came down to simple economics. ", In the note, he wrote, "You, my child, are the only one between me and the other side. Jennifer Lynn Miller, 55, of Forney, passed away peacefully November 9, 2018 in Forney. Graveside services will take place at 10 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 23 at Gardens of Memory Cemetery in Minden with pastor, Chaplain Sammy Morrow, officiating. Duntsch was taken into custody on July 21, 2015. Glidewell was the last patient Duntsch operated on before being stripped of his license to practice medicine. As he did his surgical residency, Duntsch teamed up with two Russian scientists, recruited by the University of Tennessee, to explore the commercial potential of stem cells to revitalize ailing backs. Instead of using a scalpel, he tried to pull Morguloff’s problem disk out with a grabbing instrument that could damage the spine. To stop the bleeding, Duntsch packed the space with so much anticoagulant that it squeezed Summers’ spine. … You owe me $2 million for the rest of my life.’”. “Christopher Duntsch, Texas Medical Board license number N8183, is an impaired physician, a sociopath, and must be stopped from practicing medicine.” Robin Glidewell also sent a letter, describing what happened to her husband. For more information about canonical metadata, You can’t edit our material, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style. “And I could certainly understand why patients would trust him.”. Baylor officials took Summers’ accusation seriously and ordered Duntsch to take a drug test. Three hours late, they said, Duntsch finally arrived in a cab. The day after her surgery, Efurd awoke in agony. To this day, he can only eat food in small bites and has nerve damage. We’ve had egregious results at Dallas Medical Center. View the profiles of people named Jennifer Miller. So that was, ultimately that’s what happened. Duntsch, who bounced around hospitals in North Texas, was arrested in July 2015 in Colorado, about a year and a half after his medical license was revoked. Explore Life Stories, Offer Condolences & Send Flowers. The first of these had been college football. He received a confidential settlement but said, “It wasn’t much.” He took more solace from the criminal case. Glidewell was spiking fevers and was transferred to another hospital for care. Listen ad free with Wondery+, including exclusive bonus episodes. But, as had happened at Baylor-Plano, Duntsch was allowed to resign and the hospital didn’t notify the National Practitioner Data Bank. The first screening came back diluted with tap water, but a second, taken a few days later, came up clean. What you need to know about 'Dr. It took more than six months and multiple catastrophic surgeries before anyone reported Duntsch to the state medical board, which can suspend or revoke a doctor’s license. “And so I made a statement that was not something that was necessarily true. He’s currently incarcerated in Huntsville, about an hour outside Houston. Multiple layers … Passmore did not respond to requests for comment for this story. “It was as if he knew everything to do,” Henderson said of Duntsch, “and then he’d done virtually everything wrong.”. “Out of respect for the patients and families involved, and the privileged nature of a number of details, we must continue to limit our comments. “That’s a dream for a hospital administrator,” Kirby said. She testified, but first, to show that her botched surgery was part of pattern, prosecutors — over objections from Duntsch’s attorneys — put a long line of his other patients and their relatives on the stand. He was sentenced to life in prison. Henderson cleaned out bone fragments. “Jerry was calm with Chris,” said Jennifer Miller, then Summers’ girlfriend, “but all Jerry would say to me is: ‘I want to die. She never reawakened. In July 2015, Duntsch was arrested and Dallas prosecutors charged him with one count of injury to an elderly person and five counts of assault, all stemming from his work on patients. She loved Dr. Pepper and Elvis. You can’t sell our material separately or syndicate it. and a Ph.D. from a top spinal surgery program. He filed a complaint that called Dunstch a sociopath who, if not stopped, would "continue to maim and kill innocent patients.". Their rejection was based on Duntsch’s “substandard or inadequate care” at Baylor-Plano. While Duntsch appeared to be thriving during these years, more unsavory aspects of his life simmered below the surface. Elisabeth Semel, Director, Death Penalty Clinic | Clinical Professor of Law Martin Shapiro, Professor of Law (Emeritus) Carla Shapreau, Lecturer Astha Sharma Pokharel, Clinical Teaching Fellow, International Human Rights Law Clinic Devan Shea, Clinical Teaching Fellow, Policy Advocacy Clinic You can’t use our work to populate a website designed to improve rankings on search engines or solely to gain revenue from network-based advertisements. And by the time we got down to that July, I had overwhelming evidence to indict him.”. When Duntsch arrived, the staff told him that Brown, his patient from the day before, was in critical condition. “It is not worth an attorney’s time and energy to take on a malpractice case in the state of Texas,” Morguloff said. A report dated Jan. 15, 2013, obtained by an attorney representing one of Duntsch’s patients, shows that Methodist Hospital in the Dallas suburb of McKinney had reported Duntsch after denying him privileges six months earlier. Kirby, Henderson and another doctor decided to contact the district attorney, convinced that Duntsch’s malpractice was so egregious it was criminal. Two died in the hospital, including a 55-year-old schoolteacher undergoing what was supposed to be a straightforward day surgery. “He wanted to go to college and play, and I can recall he was like 180 pounds and said, ‘I need to get to 220’ in order to be a linebacker at Colorado or Colorado State.”. Brown bled so much that blood was saturating the blue draping around her body and dripping onto the floor. While no one from the practice agreed to be interviewed, they sent an email describing the recommendations they had gotten from Duntsch’s supervisors at the University of Tennessee medical school in Memphis. We’re at our most vulnerable when we go to our doctors. and a Ph.D. As part of the program, he worked in a research lab, studying the origins of brain cancer and the various uses of stem cells. Ultimately, Duntsch was forced out of DiscGenics and his partners and investors sued him over money and stock. Shop the best of Jennifer Miller Jewelry bangles, bracelets and cuffs. He yearned to transfer and play linebacker for a Division I team. “I spent those four months just digging as hard as I possibly could, trying to gather as much information as I could. Even after the board acted, those most involved in trying to keep Duntsch from operating were afraid it would not be the end of his career. “He basically can’t really feel things when he’s holding them in his fingers.”. (In response to a request for comment, Hoyle sent a note saying he was through talking about Duntsch.). A neurosurgeon hired to review her case would later determine that Duntsch had both pierced and blocked her vertebral artery with a misplaced screw. Officers took him to a nearby psychiatric hospital. It also struck the board as highly improbable that a surgeon fresh out of training could be so lacking in surgical skill. The hospital is now closed, and its administrators from that time did not respond to questions about why they hired Duntsch. In Texas, this charge carried a potential life sentence, but prosecutors had to race to file the case. That same screw had also skewered the nerves that control one leg and the bladder. Hospital administrators also organized a comprehensive review of Duntsch’s cases, after which they determined that his days at the facility were over. He was visibly angered by Baylor-Plano’s failure to report. Visit RateMDs for information on Dr. Jennifer Griffin Miller in Ann Arbor. Death” from Wondery, the network behind “Dirty John,” “Business Wars” and “American Innovations,” today. Here is a look back at The News' reporting on Duntsch. Duntsch would continue to operate. Kirby left the room. Shortly after he arrived at the hospital, Henderson pulled up Efurd’s post-operative X-rays. Watch game, team & player highlights, Fantasy football videos, NFL event coverage & more "I don't remember feeling any pain," Summer said in the video. Don't let your arm and wrist go without a statement. At the request of a head-and-neck surgeon also on the case, the vascular surgeon assisting Duntsch was Kirby. Duntsch arrived at the hospital about 45 minutes after Efurd’s surgery had been set to start, Kissinger said. ", He also wrote: "what I am, one of kind, a [expletive] stone cold killer that can buy or own or steal or ruin or build whatever he wants.". Turning into the hospital, another one.”, Three black cats on the way to the hospital. The information isn’t available to the public or other doctors, but hospital administrators have access to the databank and are supposed to use it to make sure problem doctors can’t shed their pasts by moving from state to state or hospital to hospital. “We couldn’t find anyone.”. Soon after the Morguloff surgery, Duntsch took on a patient who was also an old friend. “I would see him maybe once a week at the scrub sinks or in the doctor’s lounge,” Kirby said. “Everything that I read when we first got his card — outstanding reviews, people loved him. He is now a quadriplegic. In fact, his career in Dallas was only about half over. When Duntsch took the job in Dallas, he asked Summers to move with him and help set up his practice. “I Don’t Trust the People Above Me”: Riot Squad Cops Open Up About Disastrous Response to Capitol Insurrection, Here’s How TurboTax Just Tricked You Into Paying to File Your Taxes, Richard Tofel to Retire as ProPublica President; Board Launches Search for Successor, A Federal Appeals Court Has Ruled in Favor of Releasing NYPD Discipline Records. Duntsch’s attorney did not allow him to be interviewed for this story. Vascular surgeon Mark Hoyle assisted with the operation. But Duntsch quickly got into trouble. Summers seemed resigned to his injuries, to his friend’s role in them and to the systemic weaknesses that allow problem doctors to keep practicing. He searched Google to find a doctor near his home in suburban Dallas who would accept his Medicare Advantage insurance. In the phone conversation, Boop said university officials had asked Duntsch to take a drug test, but he had avoided it, disappearing for several days. We trust the person at the other end of that scalpel. “I went and started doing my own research,” she said. “Phenomenal, great guy, loved him,” Morguloff recalled. He was not reported to the databank. Jerry Summers had played football with Duntsch in high school and helped with logistics at the research lab during his residency. Dr Christopher Duntsch earned the nickname Dr Death after he maimed, paralyzed and injured more than 30 patients - two of whom died - in his operating rooms, as a new podcast details . Since I am going to sue you or [sic] libel and slander of a criminal nature, this might be a good point to defend this comment.” He called Morguloff’s surgery “a perfect success.”. One screw was jabbed directly into her spinal canal. His previous surgeon testified at Duntsch’s trial that the procedure had left bone fragments in Morguloff’s spinal canal. Greg Abbott, other state leaders deplore ‘skyrocketing’ energy bills faced by some Texans. Two more facilities said they could not comment on Duntsch because their management has changed since he was there, and a fourth has closed. (In an email, Efurd said that discussing what happened to her again would take a toll on her health.). You had people on crutches. Despite having clear-cut claims and serious, irreversible injuries, three patients I talked to said they had trouble finding attorneys to take their cases. Frustrated by the board’s inaction, Henderson had called the lead investigator six months earlier to beg for faster intervention. He looked out the window. Robert Oshel, a patient safety advocate and former associate director of the databank, says that hospitals are required to check all applicants for clinical privileges and once every two years for everyone who has clinical privileges. His CV boasted that he’d earned an M.D. “I don’t think it’s because of our charm,” Lazar added dryly. For some of his patients, the criminal case offered a last chance at justice they couldn’t get through the civil courts. Neither Glidewell, nor the prosecutors, nor even Duntsch’s own attorneys said they thought his outlandish case had been a wake-up call for the system that polices doctors, however. More than 450 new Canadian obituaries add each day. “I said: ‘Listen, we’ve had egregious results at Baylor-Plano. He trained hour after hour on his own and played linebacker on his high school team in Memphis, Tennessee. But Wondery CEO Hernan Lopez has said they had informed Clear Channel ahead of time what the show was about. There is nothing more important to us than serving our community through high-quality, trusted healthcare.”. She was 105. Allegations include that Duntsch misplaced surgical hardware in a patient's spine, punctured another patient's throat leading to a life-threatening infection and irreparably damaged nerves. During the surgery, records show, Martin’s blood pressure inexplicably plummeted. She now writes about crime, other breaking news and the Dallas Zoo. There was no tumor, but Duntsch had made a series of errors after mistaking a portion of Glidewell’s neck muscle for a growth, according to a review of the case. A doctor who had once watched in surprise while Duntsch performed a procedure at Baylor Plano examined Glidewell afterward. Get that blood out of there. (Representatives of DiscGenics declined to be interviewed for this story.). Claire joined The Dallas Morning News as an intern in 2012. Get contact info, maps, medical practice history, affiliated hospitals & more. Even after Henderson’s repairs, Efurd never regained her mobility and now uses a wheelchair. Jennifer Louise Lee was born in Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, on 25 September 1935, to Gordon and Elsie (née Gibbs) Lee. In the end, it fell to the criminal justice system, not the medical system, to wring out a measure of accountability for Duntsch’s malpractice. Then the Late Notices Started Coming. I mean, it’s going downhill fast.”. Only customers cared, until now, Gov. In truth, the night before the surgery Summers and Miller had dinner at a local restaurant and watched the University of Memphis basketball team play Southern Mississippi on the bar TV. After getting his undergraduate degree in 1995, Duntsch enrolled at the University of Tennessee at Memphis College of Medicine, in an ambitious program to earn both an M.D. He set his sights on the Colorado State Rams his sophomore year and made it as one of the few walk-on players. It took the jurors just hours to find Duntsch guilty of knowingly injuring Efurd. Reluctantly, Glidewell went ahead. On Sept. 18, his attorney filed an appeal in a Dallas court, arguing that the testimony on cases other than Efurd’s and the email read by Morgan unfairly influenced the jury. She was an active 71-year-old who’d sought Duntsch’s help because back pain was keeping her off her treadmill. It’s okay to put our stories on pages with ads, but not ads specifically sold against our stories. Copyright © 2021 The Dallas Morning News. An autopsy would later find that Duntsch had cut a major vessel in her spinal cord, and within hours, Martin bled to death. Duntsch lost his privileges but got new ones at University General Hospital despite efforts by at least one doctor to sound the alarm. When he opened the window, they smelled the sour tang of alcohol and spotted an empty bottle of Mike’s Hard Lemonade on the floor of the car. Almost all, 33 to be exact, had been injured during or after these procedures, suffering almost unheard-of complications. Any website our stories appear on must include a prominent and effective way to contact you. Texas tells power plants to be winter-ready. A vascular surgeon who operated at Baylor-Plano, Dr. Randall Kirby, said he met Duntsch soon after he started and found him to be an arrogant know-it-all. (The ownership of the clinic has changed and the new owners declined to comment for this story. When a couple of months passed and they didn’t hear about more bad outcomes, Henderson and Kirby said they assumed perhaps Duntsch’s mistakes had finally caught up with him. “I was terrified of that term, ‘suspended,’” Henderson said. Join Facebook to connect with Jennifer Miller and others you may know. Kirby sent the board a five-page letter on June 23, 2013, spurred by what had happened to Glidewell. She grew up in New Orleans and graduated with a journalism degree from the University of Texas at Austin. Morguloff was told no so often, he was surprised when attorney Mike Lyons finally took his case. Duntsch seemed impressive, at least on the surface. She became so agitated the staff had to sedate her. Dr. Death features an episode devoted to Duntsch's surgery on Jerry Summers, a childhood friend who followed Duntsch to Dallas and worked with him. Ultimately, at least 19 of Duntsch’s patients or their survivors obtained settlements, but 14 of them were represented by Van Wey, who said she’s taken them on more out of a sense of outrage than out of any financial upside. The following spring, in March, police were called to a bank in Northeast Dallas after passers-by noticed a man with blood on his hands and face beating on the doors. … The statement was only made so that he might hear it and go, ‘Let me get my ass down there.’”.