A Surgeon So Bad It Was Criminal

[demmiblue]

Christopher Duntsch’s surgical outcomes were so outlandishly poor that Texas prosecuted him for harming patients. Why did it take so long for the systems that are supposed to police problem doctors to stop him from operating?

The pain from the pinched nerve in the back of Jeff Glidewell’s neck had become unbearable.

Every time he’d turn his head a certain way, or drive over bumps in the road, he felt as if jolts of electricity were running through his body. Glidewell, now 54, had been living on disability because of an accident a decade earlier. As the pain grew worse, it became clear his only choice was neurosurgery. He searched Google to find a doctor near his home in suburban Dallas who would accept his Medicare Advantage insurance.

That’s how he came across Dr. Christopher Duntsch in the spring of 2013.

Duntsch seemed impressive, at least on the surface. His CV boasted that he’d earned an M.D. and a Ph.D. from a top spinal surgery program. Glidewell found four- and five-star reviews of Duntsch on Healthgrades and more praise seemingly from patients on Duntsch’s Facebook page. On a link for something called “Best Docs Network,” Glidewell found a slickly produced video showing Duntsch in his white coat, talking to a happy patient and wearing a surgical mask in an operating room.

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.

https://www.propublica.org/article/dr-death-christopher-duntsch-a-surgeon-so-bad-it-was-criminal?utm_content=buffera5b62&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=buffer

[dalton99a]

1. A neurosurgeon who could barely drive a car

I asked him why he’d trusted Duntsch to be his doctor. He couldn’t say. He looked out the window.

He knew his friend could barely drive a car without getting lost, he said. He just assumed he had been better trained for neurosurgery.

[Me.]

2. Well This Explains Ben Carson

[bitterross]

3. It's like the police.. They don't talk about it.

It's shocking some one that bad wasn't stopped.

[Mosby]

4. long article but worth the time

The entire medical community failed to protect the public, the man had to be criminally prosecuted to finally stop him from harming patients.

Patient outcome data should be available to everyone, we regulate building contractors more than surgeons FFS.

[JayhawkSD]

5. This should have been a clue that not all was well.

"His CV boasted that he’d earned an M.D. and a Ph.D. from a top spinal surgery program."

An M.D. is a doctorate degree and is not awarded by a "spinal surgery program." It regards general medicine and is awarded by a college or university School of Medicine. Few to no medical doctors have PhD's, which is the non-medical equivalent of an M.D., and when they do, it too is not awarded by a "spinal surgery program," but by a college or university.

I would take one look at a Curriculum Vitae that contained such a ridiculous statement, pitch it in the garbage and have nothing whatever to do with its subject person.

[Archae]

6. The worst part is Texas' "tort reform."

I call it "get the doped, drunk and incompetent doctors off" law.

This "doctor" will spend his life in jail, but far more of his victims are in prisons of pain for life due to this quack.

And Texas slammed an arbitrary limit on those maimed or killed by quacks.