In Duntsch's Assault Trial, Questions About His Role After Patient Deaths
Christopher Duntsch, the former neurosurgeon being tried for assault related to his egregious patient outcomes, continued to practice after a patient died. He continued after another died. He continued after a patient woke up unable to move his arms and legs. He continued after misplacing hardware in a patient’s soft tissue, after damaging the vertebral artery that carries blood to the brain.
Thursday marked a week since testimony began in the case (which was the focus of our November cover story), and today prosecutor Michelle Shughart riddled expert witness Dr. Martin Lazar with a bevy of hypotheticals structured to mirror Duntsch’s outcomes: “Would a trained neurosurgeon know,” she’d begin, her query filled with things like whether an educated, board-certified neurosurgical physician know the complications of significant blood loss during surgery. Or whether hardware left in the wrong spot would cause some sort of disorder. By the end of the day, she grew more pointed, asking Lazar the ethics of a surgeon continuing to practice after multiple patient deaths and paralyses.
“It’s inconceivable. How can you not know that you’re going to cause a disaster?” Lazar asked, adding later: “If you have a conscience, that’s when the conscience tells you, ‘Stop!’”
He said a neurosurgeon practicing in spite of outcomes that severe would point to the individual being in “massive denial,” or showing signs of “some psychopathy,” “a disorder with thinking.”
Read more: http://www.dmagazine.com/health-fitness/2017/02/in-duntschs-assault-trial-questions-about-a-neurosurgeons-role-after-patient-deaths/