Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. What happens when a doctor fools patients into thinking he is a competent doctor not once, not twice but at least half a dozen times? The terrible answer is several lives lost, several people paralyzed for life and others with permanent pain and life-long injuries. Neurosurgeon Christopher Duntsch worked for Baylor Medical Center Plano as a neurosurgeon in Texas and is now the subject of a medical malpractice suit filed by a victim. The terrible part of this whole story is that the medical center failed to report Duntsch to the National Practitioners Data Bank and the Texas Medical Board allowing Duntsch to continue to seriously injure and kill patients.
In fact the medical center wrote a letter of recommendation for the doctor even after surgeries in which one patient was rendered a quadriplegic and another patient died under Duntsch’s care. The letter permitted Duntsch to obtain temporary privileges at another Dallas area hospital where he allegedly killed and maimed others. The carnage finally stopped after the doctor was suspended by the Texas Medical Board in June of 2013 after fellow physicians complained following the deaths of two patients and paralysis and other severe injury of others.
This extreme case of medical malpractice is absolutely unconscionable. However most often medical malpractice cases don’t involve such prolific injuries but the injuries are just as life-altering. Each year, thousands upon thousands of people are affected by the mistakes of hospitals, surgeons, and doctors – and the majority never file medical malpractice claims. A staggering 225,000 people die each year due to medical malpractice.
For example, Jim Lewis, one of our firm’s Virginia medical malpractice attorneys, helped a family of a victim who passed away due to a medical error by a doctor involving a cut uterus and colon. The victim went into the hospital for a routine gynecologic procedure called a D & C. The surgeon used a hysteroscope and during the procedure, the doctor perforated the victim’s bowels with the instrument. Unfortunately, the physician did not realize she had perforated her patient’s bowel and sent her home. Very shortly thereafter, the victim became terribly ill and ultimately died due to septic shock caused by the cut or perforated bowel. This unfortunate medical error caused our client’s wrongful death. If you ever feel you have been a victim of medical malpractice, trust your instincts and contact an experienced attorney.
CT
2 Comments
jc
Every year incompetent plaintiff attorneys file thousands of frivolous malpractice lawsuits. Like the time I was sued for a typographical mistake which I was not responsible for. Medical malpractice law is the most technically difficult litigation to pursue, yet all a lawyer needs to do to sue a doctor is to pass the state bar. Is it any wonder that plaintiff attorneys lose 85% of cases that go to trial. This is a failure rate unmatched in American Industry.
Scott Lederhaus, M.D.
Dunstch is a prime example of the failure of the peer review, state medical board and the legal system to do anything to this guy. He lost his license and had to declare bankruptcy, but so what. He killed and injured so many patients due to his horrific incompetence. Why are the hospitals able to slip through the cracks when it comes to their responsibility in keeping him on staff for as long as they did at Baylor, and yet gave him his privileges back only so Duntsch could then resign; a mechanism the hospital would have used so they could get rid of him but then not have to report him to the state board; cowards!! His residency chairman should be liable for allowing this incompetent excuse for a surgeon be allowed to practice neurosurgery. What a joke! Patients need to have faith in the medical system and Dunstch managed to destroy that system in a very short time. Docs like Duntsch should be in prison and not out free to do as he pleases.
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