How We Handle Bad Doctors

A colleague called [Christopher Duntsch] a sociopath and a “clear and present danger” to patients.  Another doctor compared him to a serial killer…

While at Baylor Plano, Duntsch was accused of maiming several patients and causing the death of another. One patient — his roommate and closest friend — claimed that Duntsch operated on him after a night of using cocaine, which Duntsch denied. The roommate emerged from the surgery a quadriplegic.

Yet when Duntsch departed Baylor Plano in 2012, the hospital stated that his record was officially clean. (Dallas Morning News)

Comments (15)

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  1. Buster says:

    Wow! It’s hard to believe how that happened.

  2. Trent says:

    He was so messed up he even hurt his best friend, yet no punishment stands?

  3. Lucas says:

    “Rational or not, what he said shocked his family. Summers claimed that he and Duntsch had been doing “eight-balls” — slang for 3.5 grams — of cocaine the night before the surgery.”

    What a lunatic

  4. James says:

    What sort of methods could be used to stop incidences like this though?

    • Trent says:

      Surveys taken before and after every visit could help drastically, then another taken after 6 months.

      • Lucas says:

        That could work but there would have to be an incentive to filling out the surveys

  5. Studebaker says:

    I read the article. Except for the oversized ego (and the cocaine use if it’s true), there doesn’t appear to be any malice. Just incompetence. The bigger question is how an incompetent neurosurgeon was hired in the first place. Just about every competent doctor who viewed his skills said he was a disaster.