Dr. Christopher Duntsch
The Baylor Regional Medical Center at Plano, accused of protecting a neurosurgeon who allegedly killed and maimed patients, gained an ally this week in Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott.
Abbott filed motions to intervene in three separate federal court suits brought against Baylor Plano by former patients of Dr. Christopher Duntsch. They have alleged that Baylor knew Duntsch was a dangerous physician but did not stop him from performing back surgery.
The suits challenge the constitutionality of a state law that requires the plaintiffs to prove that Baylor acted with actual intent to harm patients. Abbott seeks court permission to defend the statute.
If Abbott’s position is upheld, the patients would have a much harder time winning a suit against Baylor. One of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, James Girards of Dallas, criticized the attorney general’s motion.
“I think it’s absolutely insane that he has chosen to defend the hospital that enabled this … sociopathic neurosurgeon to wreak havoc on its patients,” Girards said. “I hate to think he’s doing it to pander to the medical lobby.”
Kay Van Wey, a Dallas lawyer who filed two of the suits, also attacked the attorney general. “Mr. Abbott is making it clear that his priority is to protect hospitals, not the patients they harm,” she said.
Wondering where you’ve heard the name Christopher Duntsch before? Let me quote from this Observer story, which I blogged about last October.
In late 2010, Dr. Christopher Duntsch came to Dallas to start a neurosurgery practice. By the time the Texas Medical Board revoked his license in June 2013, Duntsch had left two patients dead and four paralyzed in a series of botched surgeries.
Physicians who complained about Duntsch to the Texas Medical Board and to the hospitals he worked at described his practice in superlative terms. They used phrases like “the worst surgeon I’ve ever seen.” One doctor I spoke with, brought in to repair one of Duntsch’s spinal fusion cases, remarked that it seemed Duntsch had learned everything perfectly just so he could do the opposite. Another doctor compared Duntsch to Hannibal Lecter three times in eight minutes.
When the Medical Board suspended Duntsch’s license, the agency’s spokespeople too seemed shocked.
“It’s a completely egregious case,” Leigh Hopper, then head of communications for the Texas Medical Board, told The Dallas Morning News in June. “We’ve seen neurosurgeons get in trouble but not one such as this, in terms of the number of medical errors in such a short time.”
But the real tragedy of the Christopher Duntsch story is how preventable it was. Over the course of 2012 and 2013, even as the Texas Medical Board and the hospitals he worked with received repeated complaints from a half-dozen doctors and lawyers begging them to take action, Duntsch continued to practice medicine. Doctors brought in to clean up his surgeries decried his “surgical misadventures,” according to hospital records. His mistakes were obvious and well-documented. And still it took the Texas Medical Board more than a year to stop Duntsch—a year in which he kept bringing into the operating room patients who ended up seriously injured or dead.
In Duntsch’s case, we see the weakness of Texas’ unregulated system of health care, a system built to protect doctors and hospitals. And a system in which there’s no way to know for sure if your doctor is dangerous.
I’d call this a case of putting politics above people, and it’s completely in character for Greg Abbott. I think he just doesn’t believe anyone should be able to sue for medical malpractice. You can call it what you want – Texas Watch calls it “defending the indefensible” – I’m sure the Wendy Davis campaign will have a name for it as well.
Will anyone ask the politically incorrect question of Abbott: would you let Christopher Duntsch operate on you?
I would imagine Abbott would have some interest in the competency of doctors who operate on spinal cords, especially those who botch it an kill or maim patients.