I would be remiss if I didn’t review the medical non-fiction podcasts as well. There are some really well made ones out there. My favorites are from the Wondery studio.
This was a podcast that was recommended to me in 2020 by a certified registered nurse anesthetist (CRNA) as something I might be interested in. The first season that I am going to talk about was released August 2018 and ran through October 2018.
I listened to the first season avidly, aghast that an MD would be so negligent. But then I never thought of it again. Why? There was a little pandemic that also happened in 2020. Does covid-19 ring a bell?
Not to mention I graduated with my MSN in May of 2020. I used to listen to the recast episodes on my way to teach in January and February before the world shut down in March. And then I got a little busy. And then I went back to school in Fall 2022 and moved on to listening to other medical podcasts on my trips to the university.
Dr. Death is a story about the arrogance and
Dr. Death is about an orthopedic spine surgeon who left a trail of broken backs, death, and broken dreams behind him. He graduated from the University of Tennessee and did his training at the Tennessee Health Science Center. He only completed 100 surgeries out of the 1000 surgeries in a standard neurosurgery residency. He was hired by Baylor Regional Medial Center in Plano, Texas where he began to leave broken bodies behind.
He is the epitome of fail up. He would be invited to leave by a hospital and would leave for another hospital and damage patients and be invited to leave the second hospital. Rinse, repeat. Death and paralysis trailed in his wake.
No one had the presence of mind to stop his slow moving rampage until two surgeons who were called to repair the damage that Dr. Duntsch had wrought compared notes. They were determined to have charges filed against him. The filing of charges against another doctor is not a done thing. It is easier to have them resign and not care about where they go. This disregard for life at another hospital is a failure of the medical system and carried on far too long.
Of interest is that he chose neurosurgery, one of the most technical and prestigious of all surgery types, because it was considered the most lucrative. Of the 38 patients profiled for Dr. Death, 31 were harmed or 2 died as a result of his arrogance.
He is in prison for life and is not eligible for parole until July 2045.
Kudos to the two surgeons who were able to work with the Dallas prosecutor to stop him. Really stop him, not just pass the buck to the next hospital. Not just pass the buck on the next patient that would be harmed or killed. .
This was a very easy to listen to podcast. It was broken down over 7 episodes, although there are several additional bonus episodes that attached at the end of the episodes, from his appeal that he filed to the introduction of the actors that were in the television show.
About that, I had heard that there was a television show made of the first season that premiered in the time of the world is trying to kill us still of 2021. It ran until 2023 and is currently streaming on Peacock plus or available for purchase from Prime Video. But I don’t watch television and then I finished the first season of the podcast I removed it from my list and I had no idea that three other seasons had released. I will be listening to these. Dr. Duntsch, Dr. Fata, Dr. Paola, and Dr. Gumrukcu. I have some listening to catch up on.
But as a surgery nurse I have to question where are the nurses at the hospitals that kept failing him up? Were they part of the complainants that got him fired but not prosecuted? Did they just blink at his behavior and say “Well, that’s just Dr. D for you.”? Where were the scrub techs who can also voice objections? Granted, as the surgical team we don’t know a lot about patient follow up, except when the patients return for a revision. But surely question were raised among the teams.
This is also a failure of the surgical team. It is our duty to point out problems and mistakes that the surgeon might otherwise try to brush off.
I recommend this podcast to anyone who is a scrub tech or a surgical nurse. It is up to us to recognize and stop these surgeons when they are harming patients.
Dispatches from the Evening Shift 