Dr. Death podcast

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okayplayer

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Couldn’t help but think about all of my fellow anesthesiologists who had to work with this monster. Had to be a terrible situation.


I’ve met some bad surgeons but clearly this guy had mal intent. Interesting series.
 
I was reading it yesterday. 33 complications out of 37?
 
I’m not much a podcast guy, this is was wild. Chilling, listened all last week. Scary thing is I wondered to myself if I or any of my colleagues would recognize this dude was that bad? Surely after 2 or 3 surgeries?

Most scary is the complete ineptitude of the Texas Medical Board - Y I K E S !

They also mention the surgeon finished residency with only 100 performed surgeries, how is that possible in the ACGME era?
 
Hey! He was a surgeon making money for the hospital - you saw what he got away with. Meanwhile, if an anesthesiologist says "good morning" without making eye contact, they are s_hitcanned.
 
Will now start listening. Thanks for posting about it.
 
AdmiralChz said:
They also mention the surgeon finished residency with only 100 performed surgeries, how is that possible in the ACGME era?
Click to expand...

This is the part that totally blows my mind, and as a listener more familiar with medical education than the layperson, had me dropping my jaw. That's like a case every 20 days. WTF was he doing for seven years? How was he allowed to graduate? In my opinion, the buck starts and stops with his training program, and every faculty member that was in a case with him and realized he had no idea what he was doing and didn't speak up should have been crucified.
 
Absolutely incredible. Simply mind-boggling all the way around.
 
It's amazing what people who bring revenue to a hospital can get away with. When I stick someone more than once for an IV it's write ups, meetings, peer review, and questioning of certification.
 
Twiggidy said:
It's amazing what people who bring revenue to a hospital can get away with. When I stick someone more than once for an IV it's write ups, meetings, peer review, and questioning of certification.
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Seriously? Now you make me afraid of the patients with bamboo backs that require a little more effort to get a spinal in, especially when it takes a few stabs, and they're getting impatient. So now everything has to be first time every time, or else??
 
2Fast2Des said:
Seriously? Now you make me afraid of the patients with bamboo backs that require a little more effort to get a spinal in, especially when it takes a few stabs, and they're getting impatient. So now everything has to be first time every time, or else??
Click to expand...

You should have gone paramedian. Two passes is a never event.
 
2Fast2Des said:
Seriously? Now you make me afraid of the patients with bamboo backs that require a little more effort to get a spinal in, especially when it takes a few stabs, and they're getting impatient. So now everything has to be first time every time, or else??
Click to expand...

1) Listen to @caligas I used to shun paramedian until I had a few difficult epidurals. Then I realized paramedian can save you a lot of headache, especially when it comes to thoracic.

2) I was exaggerating....a little. Some patients are just plain crazy. Don't be afraid. If it's difficult just offer apologies and move forward.
 
chocomorsel said:
So old news. Read about him over a year ago. Must have been in the NYT or something.
Shady stuff be happening in the Big D!!
Click to expand...
In case you missed the very first post in the thread (or the subject), there is a new podcast about this that is generating a tremendous amount of attention. Hence my post.
 
Media getting a lot of mileage out of this story. Rightly so, it is crazy s***.
 
The podcast goes into much, much more detail than the articles that came out last year.

Plus it’s a very interesting listen to those of us with a medical background and work with neurosurgeons every day.
 
AdmiralChz said:
They also mention the surgeon finished residency with only 100 performed surgeries, how is that possible in the ACGME era?
Click to expand...

I think this was probably a mistake by the host. I noticed that there were a few times where she didn’t really seem to get the difference between, med school, residency, and fellowship, which is understanble. I would bet that he did only about 100 cases during that 1 year fellowship he did. But she took that number and thought it was his entire number for residency.
 
chocomorsel said:
Didn’t miss it. Just pointing out that before this “tremendous” amount of interest the story had out in the papers for a while.
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Check the google analytics on the story. To the majority (including everyone I’ve talked to) this was news.

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=duntsch&geo=US

parliamentarian said:
I think this was probably a mistake by the host. I noticed that there were a few times where she didn’t really seem to get the difference between, med school, residency, and fellowship, which is understanble. I would bet that he did only about 100 cases during that 1 year fellowship he did. But she took that number and thought it was his entire number for residency.
Click to expand...

I thought this was possible... but They doubled down on it in the latest episode this week - they looked at records from residency and fellowship and added up the number of surgeries he participated in and it was less than 100.
 
She’s actually been pretty accurate with describing med school, residency, and fellowship. Surprisingly so. I really think somehow he only did 100.
 
Such an unbelievable series of events. Sounds like the guy slowly slipped into psychosis. Is there any culpability for an anesthesiologist, who could have been the only other physician in the room? I'd tend to say no, but I could see an argument being made for yes.

But yeah I agree with some of the earlier sentiment... there should be some serious ramifications to a residency program that allowed him to graduate with that few operations and especially with Baylor Plano for not making it clear that he was fired for serious complications of his surgeries. What a total system failure.
 
Hrdrock said:
Such an unbelievable series of events. Sounds like the guy slowly slipped into psychosis. Is there any culpability for an anesthesiologist, who could have been the only other physician in the room? I'd tend to say no, but I could see an argument being made for yes.

But yeah I agree with some of the earlier sentiment... there should be some serious ramifications to a residency program that allowed him to graduate with that few operations and especially with Baylor Plano for not making it clear that he was fired for serious complications of his surgeries. What a total system failure.
Click to expand...

People knew. The other physicians knew. It was probably brought up multiple times to the administration. Administrators and likely the CEO knew. Thry chose to sweep it under the rug. Bad publicity.
 
Hrdrock said:
Such an unbelievable series of events. Sounds like the guy slowly slipped into psychosis. Is there any culpability for an anesthesiologist, who could have been the only other physician in the room? I'd tend to say no, but I could see an argument being made for yes.
Click to expand...
There is no argument for Yes. When the system castrates anesthesiologists on a daily basis, the system needs to pay out the tens of millions they deserve to. We are not allowed to be patient advocates anymore, because we are "anxious", "whining", "lazy" etc. I am extremely sorry for the patients, but every hospital that doesn't allow the anesthesiologists to run the OR, including deciding which cases to go or not, and which surgeons should not be allowed to operate for being unsafe, DESERVES THIS. And that probably includes 50% of American hospitals right now.

There has been too much kissing up to the surgeons, without regard for patient safety. It's time for it to end, and the only way is for a jury to send that message in an 8 digit-number.

As long as an anesthesiologist is bullied for standing up for what s/he considers the right thing, there can't be any culpability for the anesthesiologist. The system is the one that's rotten.

And I honestly couldn't despise JCAHO more. This is the kind of event-series that should lead to a hospital losing their accreditation for 10 years, no debates. Where is the joint-smoking worthless bureaucracy now?
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Excellent podcast. She did her research and it showed. Thank god that the neurosurgeon and vascular surgeon decided to speak up to get Duntch’s license taken. It’s laughable that the hospitals involved, who could’ve very easily and collectively stopped him, did absolutely nothing (except charge facility fees...) all while outwardly stating ‘we only care about patients’. Such Bull.

Ours is a system which bows to the mighty dollar and not the unfortunate patient.
 
Good podcast, but I'm still a bit surprised there were no anesthesiologist interviews considering all the patients they talked about lost liters of blood and came out of the OR in 10/10 pain.
 
CopaceticOne said:
Latest, I believe, list of ACGME case requirements for neurosurg: https://www.acgme.org/Portals/0/PFA...e_Categories_and_Required_Minimum_Numbers.pdf

Things that I wonder are 1) what were the minimum required case numbers while he was in residency and 2) was the 100 cases she was taking about just spine cases?
Click to expand...

UT stonewalled the lady when she was trying to get his residency case logs, don't know why the the true number didn't come out with subpoena in trial. She said the 100 case figure came from her calling all the training hospitals listed on his CV and asking them how many cases was he listed as one of the surgeons of record. An anonymous co-resident of Duntsch's said the 100 figure was plausible cause he rarely saw the guy in the OR. IMO, UT deserves a fair share of the culpability for letting this guy graduate in the first place.
 
I am a bit late to this party, I had read the articles awhile back but just finally listened to the podcast. I have been trying to figure out whether or not the program he went to was actually as "top tier" as they say if he was able to somehow go through residency and fellowship without seemingly doing really any cases. I've tried and failed to find out if anyone else has published this information because I think the crazier part of the story is that a procedural residency that lasts for >5 years would basically graduate and recommend a resident who seemingly did nothing the entire time they were there (maybe it's all floor work and observing?). I also can't tell if it's actually a good program or if it just makes the story more interesting if you call it one.

My only real critique of the podcast is it sounds like she didn't really have anyone familiar with the medical education or ACGME process really clear much up with her, because she seemed to use the terms medical school/medical student/residency/resident somewhat interchangeably which made the timeline a bit harder to understand. Also the bigger sticking point (as I said earlier) is that a training program basically let this guy walk in and walk out after seemingly getting no training.
 
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