If you are a living, breathing human being, chances are you’re fairly into your true crime at the moment.
There’s been documentaries about serial killers, there’s been series about unsolved cases, there’s been show after show that have shocked and appalled audiences for months on end as our fixation with the weird and the horrifying seems to know no bounds.
True crime is taking over, and it’s because of our fascination with the horror of real life that the genre continues to thrive, giving us more and more content that is almost too shocking to be believed.
‘Dr Death’ is a little different though.
It isn’t about a kidnapping or an unsolved murder or a wrongful conviction – it’s about a doctor who continuously paralyses, injures, and kills his patients during surgery… And the story behind why he was able to keep doing it for years.
The doctor in question is Christopher Duntsch, a neurosurgeon from the States who began practicing in and around the Dallas, Texas area in 2010.
During his time practicing, he operated on many different patients in many different hospitals – some of them he knew personally, and others he didn’t.
There was one thing that the vast majority of Dr Duntsch’s patients had in common though: most of them suffered life changing injuries as a result of their surgery, leaving them in intense pain or paralysed.
And a few were even killed.
The 10 episode podcast series, written and narrated by journalist Laura Beil, tells the story of Duntsch’s malpractice, the patients he hurt, and the ones who never got to leave the hospital after he operated on them.
The series also tries to understand why a surgeon causing so much pain and loss of life was permitted to practice for as long as he did.
It also considers how Duntsch, later known in the media as ‘Dr Death,’ managed to slip through the cracks of the medical community time and time again.
The podcast will shake you to your core. It really will.
Dr Death’s tail of carnage is told through the people who knew him, as well as those who trusted him enough to allow him to operate on their sick bodies.
The episodes evoke a keen sense of claustrophobia, pressure, and intensity as stories are told over the steady beeping of pulse monitoring machines. Every single incision – and every mismanaged surgery – is felt.
You’ll be shocked, horrified, and pretty certain that you’ll never want to have another surgery again.
You can listen to Dr Death here or wherever you get your podcasts.
