Talk:Christopher Duntsch

Keep/delete
I am so new to this, but please don't delete the information on this man. My son's father in law Jeff Glidewell was the very last patient that was operated on. He's lucky to be alive. Per the District Attorney of Dallas and the Prosecution team, this is a landmark case where a medical professional has been convicted and sentenced to life in prison for a crime where so many people were maimed, crippled and killed. It's been said that this is a landmark case for the United States as a whole too (per Channel 8 news). If that is the case, then it's a possibility that this story will eventually be discussed on news programs like 20/20 or dateline. This story may seem small right now, but it will grow. Krandomness (talk) 21:37, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

TV series casting
NOTE: the last source (currently 23) which supposedly has info about a TV series starring Alec Baldwin and Christian Slater makes no such mention. A quick Internet search does reveal articles with that info such as this one:

https://www.vulture.com/2019/08/alec-baldwin-christian-slater-join-forces-against-dr-death.html

I would edit the page, but the complexity of the formatting has reached the point where it's too much trouble. Maybe someone else can fix this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2620:105:B008:2100:0:0:0:29B0 (talk) 16:33, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

Precedent-setting?
The Reactions section of this article argues that Duntsch's case has been called precedent-setting. It would be very much appreciated if someone could list some cases which cited Texas v Duntsch as precedent. -Guninvalid (talk) 22:50, 19 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Cases whose fact scenarios are similar to Duntsch's will, hopefully, be few and far between. If that is the case, then it will take years for a body of case law to develop in which Duntsch is cited as precedent. I think the meaning of “precedent-setting” intended herein is that this case is the first of its kind in which the convicted physician received a (significant) prison term. I did a search, albeit cursory, at CaseLaw and only found the appeals case and a civil suit. However, someone with greater access and facility with American legal databases could probably do a better job. — Spike  Toronto  11:18, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

Van Wey commentary removed
I noticed a number of references to this article written by the law firm of Kim Van Wey, one of the many lawyers who have filed civil suits related to Duntsch. The text had a number of similarities to the Wikipedia article, and had almost no attributions to American Greed or other sources. Per WP:COPY, even linking to this article could potentially amount to contributory infringement, so all references to this article have been removed. HangingCurveSwing for the fence 19:32, 29 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Please excuse my late comment on this note, but this doesn’t really make any sense to me. So long as our article is properly sourced and referenced, the fact that someone’s cited therein isn’t should be of no consequence to us. Many of the secondary sources used in Wikipedia articles do not themselves cite sources in a properly footnoted manner and/or otherwise (e.g., most periodicals (e.g., newspapers, magazines, etc.)). By the above logic, we would have to cut ourselves off from their use. Further, how is this wikiarticle inducing Van Wey to violate copyright, or vice versa (i.e., contributing secondarily to copyright infringement, something not fully recognized in American copyright law anyway)? To me, the greater issue is one of neutral point of view, inasmuch as Van Wey is a litigator in civil suits related to the subject matter of this wikiarticle and thereby an advocate whose professional code of conduct requires a zealous representation of his client. No NPOV is required at his end; but, it is at ours, an approach that would support, in the alternative, the removal of his commentary, as you have already done. — Spike  Toronto  10:28, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

Inconsistency with Source
I reviewed the accessible sources for this section as it wasn't always clear which procedures were carried out at which facility.

As it stands this section states that Duntsch started at South Hampton and stayed on when it was taken over and renamed University General. None of the sources I can check appear to support this. Propublica contradicts it. I drafted changes below to reflect this source: removing reference to South Hampton in the para 1, sentence 1; reference to South Hampton & University General in para 2, last sentence; and adding reference to University General in para 3, sentence 2.

I found these changes were added on 8th August 2021 referencing source 'Dr Death: the Undoctored Story' which I cannot check. Can anyone confirm the chronology either way?

"After leaving Dallas Medical Center, Duntsch took a job at an outpatient clinic named Legacy Surgery Center (now Frisco Ambulatory Surgery Center) in Frisco. While there, he severed patient Jeff Cheney's spinal cord, leaving him without feeling on the right side of his body.[18] He damaged patient Philip Mayfield's spinal cord while drilling into it, leaving him temporarily paralyzed from the neck down. After undergoing physical rehabilitation, Mayfield was able to walk with Anya cane but continued to experience paralysis on the right side of his body and in his left arm. He also experienced shooting pain all over his body.[4] Mayfield died of COVID-19 in February 2021; according to his wife, he had been vulnerable to the virus due to complications caused by Duntsch's botched surgeries.[26]

While attempting to remove degenerated discs in Marshall "Tex" Muse's back, Duntsch left surgical hardware floating between the spine and muscle tissue. Muse woke up in considerable pain, but Duntsch convinced him it was normal. He then prescribed Muse so much Percocet that the pharmacist refused to refill it, out of fear that Muse would die. Muse spiraled into opioid addiction that cost him his wife and his job. He later recalled that he read about Martin's death on the day before the surgery, but Duntsch cursed him out when he called to ask about it.[7] While operating on Jacqueline Troy, Duntsch cut one of her vocal cords and one of her arteries and poked holes through her trachea. Troy was left barely able to speak above a whisper, had to be sedated for weeks, and had to be fed through a feeding tube for some time as food was getting into her lungs.[18]

When Duntsch applied for privileges at Methodist Hospital in Dallas, the hospital reported him to the NPDB. But soon afterwards he obtained priviledges at University General Hospital, formerly South Hampton. Here Duntsch severely maimed Jeff Glidewell after mistaking part of his neck muscle for a tumor during a routine cervical fusion, severing one of his vocal cords, cutting a hole in his esophagus and slicing an artery. He stuffed a surgical sponge in Glidewell's throat to staunch the bleeding. However, he closed Glidewell up with the sponge still embedded despite others in the operating room warning him about it. The sponge triggered a severe blood-borne infection that caused Glidewell to go septic. When other doctors discovered the sponge, Duntsch refused to return to help.[9][23][19][7] After several days, Kirby was rushed in to repair the damage, and later described what he found after opening Glidewell back up as the work of a "crazed maniac". He later told Glidewell that it was clear Duntsch had tried to kill him. Glidewell was left with only one vocal cord, permanent damage to his esophagus, and partial paralysis on his left side.[19][16] Kirby claimed that it looked as if Duntsch had tried to decapitate Glidewell, and contended that such a botched surgery "has not happened in the United States of America" before. Glidewell was reportedly still suffering the effects of Duntsch's botched operation years later, and has undergone more than 50 surgeries to correct the damage. At one point, he was only able to eat small bites of food at one time. He proved to be Duntsch's last surgery; University General pushed him out soon afterward.[7][27][16]"

94.126.214.30 (talk) 22:46, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

Dates missing
The "Baylor-Plano," "Dallas Medical Center" and "Other hospitals" sections contain no information about the dates or even years of any of the malpractice incidents described. The article would be clearer and more informative if some date information were included there. JohnMason (talk) 14:17, 18 September 2023 (UTC)