Drawn to Darkness
Do your friends think you're weird because you rattle off facts about serials killers and watch horror movies to relax? We're here for you! Drawn to Darkness is a biweekly podcast where two best friends take turns discussing our favorite horror and true crime.
Our cover art is by Nancy Azano. You can find her work on instagram @nancyazano.
Our intro and outro music is by Harry Kidd. Check him out on instagram @HarryJKidd.
Drawn to Darkness
Dr. Death with Joshua Jackson
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
This week, we swap fictional scientists playing God for a very real doctor doing harm as we dive into Dr. Death, the TV series based on the Wondery podcast about Christopher Duntsch, a Dallas neurosurgeon who, over roughly two years, operated on 38 people, maimed 33 and killed two. And no one stopped him.
Joshua Jackson trades Pacey Witter's charm for terrifying narcissism as Duntsch, who was charismatic but catastrophically bad at surgery. But the question hanging over the entire series is even more disturbing: was he unbelievably incompetent, or or a sociopath trying to do harm? Luckily, Christian Slater's cowboy-boot-wearing Dr Randy Kirby and Alec Baldwin's far more restrained Dr Robert Henderson become the medical world's answer to Brody and Hooper, one politely making phone calls while the other is looking for a scalpel to stop Duntsch from ever operating again.
We dig into Baylor Plano's letter that allowed him to move on, the Texas Medical Board's painfully slow response, the hierarchy that made nurses struggle to be heard over surgeons, tort reform that left victims with few avenues for compensation, and a healthcare system where hospitals are businesses and neurosurgeons are money. Duntsch may be the monster in the operating room, but a disturbing number of people and institutions helped keep the door open.
Spoiler Alert and Trigger Warning
In addition to spoiling the show, we discuss surgeries gone catastrophically wrong, blood, scalpels, bones being hammered and broken, severed nerves and spinal structures, paralysis, permanent disability, surgical equipment and materials being left inside patients, infected wounds, pus, death, domestic abuse, narcissistic and abusive behaviour, depression following life-changing injuries and the wider emotional impact on victims and their families. Some of the descriptions venture firmly into body-horror territory.
Recommendations
- Dr. Death podcast and Season Two for another wild medical story involving supposedly revolutionary 3D-printed body parts.
- Scrubs and Secrets - a new indie podcast with two nurses discussing healthcare crimes and the emotional weight of working in medicine.
- Real Crime Profile for more discussion of Christopher Duntsch and whether his behaviour fits that of a serial offender.
- Dopesick - The book and TV series for more on the collateral damage of a for-profit healthcare system.
- Misery - for another story about being completely helpless under the care of a very bad medical professional.
- The Pitt - if you need to see imperfect but competent doctors doing their best inside a flawed system.
- 30 Rock - For Dr Spaceman
- So I Married an Axe Murderer because of Duntsch's snapping poetry scene
- Friday Night Lights - for more football
- Heathers, True Romance and Interview with the Vampire, Chupa, and Mr. Robot - Because there is always room for another Christian Slater recommendation.
- Office Space - with the actor who plays Dr Sassani.
- True Blood because Arlene plays Duntsch's lawyer.
- The Royal Tenenbaums - For soothing Alec Baldwin narration.
Palate Cleanser:
Caroline recommends jumping straight into Season Three of The Comeback for a surprisingly lovely story about a good person while also exploring AI's arrival in Hollywood.
Homework:
For our next episode, we're heading to Widow's Bay. There's a cranky doctor, a character using drugs to supposedly open his mind (giving Christopher-Duntsch-doing-“stem-cell-research”-while-high) and the series has received 19 Emmy nominations.
Even better, we'll be joined by Liz Sower from Ghosts in the Burbs.
And if you want to get ahead on future homework, start looking for Incidents Around the House by Josh Malerman. The upcoming Other Mommy adaptation looks horrifying, and the book is scary enough to make nighttime trips to the bathroom a serious strategic decision.
As always, send us your recommendations for TV shows, podcasts, movies or books you'd like us to cover. Find us on Instagram, Facebook and Threads; like, subscribe and review us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify; or email us at drawntodarknesspod@gmail.com. Most importantly, tell a like-minded friend who is also drawn to darkness.
Until next time: research your doctors, listen to nurses, trust that bad vibe, take the trip, and never order a red wine milkshake.
Special thanks to Nancy Azano for the podcast cover art. Find her on Instagram at @nancyazano.
Thanks also to Harry Kidd for the opening and closing music. Find him on Instagram at @harryjkidd and on Spotify.
Welcome back to John to Darkness, a sometimes weekly, sometimes biweekly podcast, more biweekly lately, where we discuss our favorite horror and true crime. love a story where justice is actually done, we're here for you. My name is Annie, and I'll be introducing Carolyn to my favorite horror movies, podcasts, TV shows, and books
CarolineAnd my name is Caroline, and I'll be doing the same for the true crime side of things.
AnneQuestion for you. Hasty or Dawson?
CarolineDo you even need to ask? Is anyone Team Dawson out there?
Anneso. I would love to hear if somebody is Team Dawson. Please write in, and I need to know why. Please justify your opinion
Carolinefine. Go ahead and write in. You need to know you're wrong, but please do let us know why you think you're right.
AnneSo what's your favorite Pacey moment, given that we are both obviously Team Pacey? Justify your opinion
CarolineOh my gosh. it's hard to pick one moment. but my favorite, like, scene of them is when they're at Dawson's weird aunt's place, having that sleepover or whatever, and she mentions that she felt his arm, brush against hers, and it made her feel alive or whatever, and he's like, "Okay, I'm gonna kiss you now cause you can't say something like that to me and expect me not to kiss you. I'm gonna kiss you in 10 seconds, and if you don't want me to, uh, you're just gonna have to try and stop me."
AnneThat is a romantic scene.
CarolineYeah. he does such a good job when she was like, "I think I'm in love with you," and he turns and he's like, "You think or you know?" And, like, his reactions to her confessing are so good. He's so good
AnneHe's great. it's probably not that original, but I was gonna go with the boat, when they, like, get on the boat together.
CarolineMm-hmm.
Anneremember being
CarolinePermission to come aboard?
Anneyeah, like swooning,
CarolineYeah
Annewhen I was or 17 watching that. for a non-romance scene, I don't know if I like this scene, it's not when Pacey spits on the teacher in the early seasons, but later on there's a teacher who, like, shames him for not having a working pencil in an exam, and he calls out the teacher about, only caring about the honor students and not the
CarolineMm-hmm.
Annelike him who actually could use his help. And I just, as a teacher, I think that is a helpful reminder, because it's easy to like and help the honor students, and I think it's important to help the students like Pacey, Why are we discussing our mutual childhood crush, Pacey Witter, from Dawson's Creek, on a podcast about horror and true crime, you might be wondering. Because after last week's episode on Deep Blue Sea with scientists playing God, we're pivoting to a real-life doctor doing harm with Dr. Christopher Duntsch, played on the TV series Dr. Death by Joshua Jackson. and one thing I wanted to point out is on the podcast, one of the actors on the show, I think it was Anna Sophia Robb, who played the DA,
CarolineMm-hmm.
AnneJackson be nicer, and
CarolineYeah.
Annea good person in real life, which is always nice, 'cause often they aren't.
CarolineYeah
Annespoiler and trigger warning. There is hammering of bones, blood, scalpels, surgeries gone horribly wrong, severing of nerves and cords and parts that should not be severed, bone fragments. There's surgical equipment sewn up in bodies. There's pus coming out of a surgical scar. you know, it's arguably body horror, some of the things that we hear and see, and just generally really bad outcomes such as death and paralysis narcissism. There's domestic abuse. Is there anything I missed?
Carolinelife-changing injuries.
AnneAnd then, you know, the depression
CarolineMm-hmm
Anneafter that potentially. We will also be spoiling The Real Crimes of Christopher Duntsch. I'm saying Christopher Duntsch because I was listening to a Real Crime Profile episode on him, and they made a point of, like, not calling him doctor
CarolineMm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Annehe really disrespected the profession. so we'll be talking about the TV show, but also the podcast that inspired it. and I should just say, I opened with the idea that this is a story where justice is done legally, the harm is not undone, and this is a story that resulted in a lot of harm.
Carolineand I would also say, in my opinion, justice was only somewhat done, cause I have feelings about Baylor Plano.
AnneYes, you're absolutely right. We will definitely delve into that.
Carolineyeah, so we did do the TV series and not the podcast itself, because the podcast itself is behind a paywall. it was not when it first came out. I remember listening to it. Now it's in Audible. I feel like that's kinda antithetical to the point of podcasts, and it frustrates me, so we, like, very purposely did the show hoping that you might have access to it on Hulu or whatever weird thing Annie has to watch things on.
AnneStan. Hi, Australians. subscribe to Audible to get it, and I, I have a three-month free trial. But I'll probably just fall guilty to what I always do with a free trial and just keep going. Well, tell us what this is about, Carolyn
CarolineOkay, so Dr. Death, the TV series starts with Dr. Henderson, a neurosurgeon describing in horrific detail his attempt to correct a botched surgery. We soon learn that the victim, Madeline Beyer, based on the real life, Mary Efurd, has essentially been butchered in surgery, leaving her in pain and partially paralyzed by so-called Dr. Christopher Duntsch, another neurosurgeon with charisma, confidence, and all the right credentials, who is either incompetent with a deluded and hubristic view of his abilities or actively sociopathic and meaning to do his patients harm, which we will be debating, I guess, later. We soon learn that Dr. Duntsch has not just butchered her, but over the course of roughly two years, maimed 33 patients, killed two out of the 38 people he operated on. Dr. Kirby, played delightfully by Christian Slater, my first celebrity crush, and Dr. Henderson played straight as an arrow by Alec Baldwin, make it their personal mission to stop Christopher Duntsch, but face systemic failures such as the glacial pace of the Texas Medical Board or any board to act, the financial incentive to keep a lucrative neurosurgeon on staff, and the liability a hospital might face for firing one. They take the case to the DA, where ADA Michelle Schubert takes up the legal battle to stop and succeeds at putting him in jail for life. Throughout the series, we encounter his other victims in his orbit, including nurses and physicians assistants his best friend, who he left quadriplegic and who later died, his ex-girlfriend and child, and his supportive but disappointed father. Although Dr. Duntsch is ultimately stopped, his story leaves us with questions and deep concerns about whether the system has reformed to stop future Dr. Deaths, and the final episode ends with the warning that what happened here will happen again
AnneSo what word or adjective would you use to describe this? What comes to mind?
Carolinefrightening
AnneHmm.
Carolinecame to my mind first. I know it's basic, but I mean, my husband had spinal surgery a year ago. He went to a neurosurgeon to replace a disc in his spine. and I remember thinking of this podcast while it was happening and just being nervous
AnneYeah, I went with chilling. So along the same lines, a way this is kind of scarier than your average horror movie because I've had surgery. I know that, throughout my life, chances are I will again, as we age, and I wanna trust that when, you know, my mind and body go blank with anesthesia, that the people surrounding me are competent and well-meaning I know somebody on this. I've met one of the actors. Mrs. Keller, she was my French teacher's daughter when I was in high school, senior year when we graduated, she had a barbecue at her house, and she was there. She's also in To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything!, and I think she's in that show, The Leftovers. I'm pretty sure it's her. She's the one who has the, the okay outcome
CarolineHmm.
Annein those two out of three bad surgeries. the creators of this. the show is based on the podcast,
CarolineMm-hmm.
Annewas hosted by, uh, journalist Laura Beale. She's a freelance journalist who worked as a medical writer for the Dallas Morning News, and she was contacted by Wondery to do this podcast. She has a number of other podcasts, including Exposed and Bad Batch, which is about the stem cell industry. So I'm kind of interested in that. Maybe while I have Audible, I'll give that a chance. yeah, the showrunner of Dr. Death, is Patrick McManus. And I immediately thought when I saw that name, I was like, "That guy sounds like a priest,"
CarolineMm-hmm. Yeah
Annewhen I was looking at for an interview with him in my podcast app, there is a priest who hosts a podcast, and his name is Patrick McManus. So that, really muddied the waters in terms of finding anything interviewing him. But
CarolineIsn't there like a McManus Hall or something where we went to college?
AnneYeah, I think there was.
CarolineYeah
Annea Father McManus as a kid too. So I guess it's a very common surname, for Irish Catholic priests in the Northeast. Uh, he was also the creator of another Peacock series called Devil in Disguise about John Wayne Gacy, which has a 7.4 on IMDb, and from what I could see, gets really good reviews. Dr. Death is 7.6 on IMDb for comparison, so comparable in terms of how it was received. was actually nominated for more Choice Awards than Dr. Death. Have you
CarolineHmm.
Anneof it? Seen it?
CarolineMaybe. I can't recall
Anneit looks good and it looks like it won awards, and yet I've like didn't even know it existed.
CarolineHmm. Mm-hmm.
AnneJeffrey Dahmer one and the Ed Gein one. and then this one, this John Wayne Gacy one, All right, context and setting of this, the events in this take place from about 2011 2012 in Dallas, so not the olden days, these crimes and these, the harm that he did took place like just over a decade ago. So I think it's important to put it in context in terms of tort reform in
CarolineMm-hmm.
Annemedical malpractice trauma
CarolineMm-hmm.
Anneharm, not necessarily for medical bills, but making it nearly impossible to get a civil suit into court because of all the research that it would take to take on a case like this. It would take so much time that it's just not worth it for the lawyers. And then even if you did win, and you have to give probably half of it to the lawyers, it's not enough to, live your life if you've got a permanent disability. So the people he harmed just to start out, do you have any, favorite scenes? Like, things that really stuck out to you in terms of how this show was made?
Carolinethe scene that sticks with me the most, I remember thinking then and I still am not sure what the intention was with putting it in, is the scene when Joshua Jackson as Stunt is trying to practice the play with his friend while in college, still trying to be there for his football scholarship, and he keeps getting it wrong. It just planted that seed of doubt of intent, you know, for me throughout
AnneWell, yeah, it sounds like he has a history of being driven but volatile, intensely focused, double down when challenged. Like he Rocky-ed his life.
Carolinelike,
Annekept pushing
Carolineand like a genius and, a, I mean very smart in a lot of ways. But it's very simple to like go right instead of left, and I think Slater as Kirby has moments where it's like he knew what he was supposed to do and he didn't. watching that football scene where there's nothing in it for him, and it's just him and his friend, you know, nobody's watching, you're not gonna get any money from it, and he just can't get it right, it really makes you feel sympathetic towards him, and it makes you wonder, like, does he have some sort of learning impairment or something like that I mean, I like...
Annebeing a surgeon? Yeah.
CarolineWell, right, separately, once you have poor outcomes, you should know better. Putting that aside, are the poor outcomes intentional or are they not?
AnneI think in real life, according to the podcast, he went to this guy's house and there, and he came back like three times. Like, he would leave because he would get pinned wrestling with him, and then he'd come back and try again, and then he'd come back and try again. And also,
CarolineRight
Annething did happen too, but not sure exactly how true
CarolineIt, it, it wasn't ident- 'cause I was listening for it, 'cause I, I also listened to all the follow-up episodes, which I hadn't listened to the first time. I just listened to them now, and it just sounds like he just wasn't up to snuff. I mean, you know, he gets weighed in at 198 pounds, and he claims he was 220 at home. That's quite a swing for the scale to be off. clearly
Annehave you ever messed up something at work?
CarolineWell, of course.
Annedid you feel about it?
CarolineI mean, horrific. I feel a lot of shame anytime I mess up anything anywhere
AnneI will find myself agonizing over whether or not I'm giving a kid like an A-minus or a B-plus,
CarolineMm-hmm.
Anneand I been. And then the consequences of that are like nothing. Like,
CarolineRight
Anneyou know, the consequences of him being incompetent and continuing to try, if we're giving him the most, forgiving view of what he did,
CarolineNo, totally agree. putting aside that he kept doing it anyway,
AnneYeah.
Carolinewithout that scene, you really feel like he doesn't give a shit whether he knows what he's doing or not. But with that scene, you feel like, "Oh, maybe he thinks he's doing it right," know?
AnneAnd Dr. Henderson says, "If I did something like that, I never would have allowed myself into an operating room again."
CarolineTotally
Anneit raises the question, is he just incapable of seeing his incompetence? Michelle Sheargott said that when Dr. Lazar, in real life, so they showed Dr. Henderson giving the testimony about, like, how surgery works, but actually it was a man named Dr. Lazar who was explaining it. She felt like saw the light click on
CarolineYeah
Annelike, "Oh, actually, I suck at this," in that moment. Still not okay, a less forgiving, look at this is that he's a sociopath. Michelle Sheargott also says that she listened to his jail calls, and he never showed any acknowledgment that he was wrong. and on Real Crime Profile, that's the podcast with profilers that I brought up on our Mindhunter episode, so this was on before the TV show came out, so they're only talking about the podcast. But Jim Clemente points out that if you got into a car accident and injured someone every time you drove, your license would get taken away by the third time, right? he calls him a serial offender. he's like, "I think he kept going because he liked it. He was getting something out of this." Do you think?
Carolineif the something is money, I don't know that he has other needs or concerns. He really reminds me of a certain world leader have here.
AnneI have, I believe, the same note about narcissism,
CarolineMm-hmm
AnneI think we talked about in our H.H. Holmes episode, if you're gonna be around a narcissist, you need to keep being useful,
CarolineMm-hmm
Anneand we see the way Christopher Duntsch drops people who are no longer useful to him and uses him, and we see the way political leaders do the same
CarolineMm-hmm. even when there's clear facts in front of your face that you're wrong about something, like you lost the 2020 election, for example, let's say, you just keep doubling down because you cannot, exist in a reality where you're capable of losing
AnneSo you alter your reality. Other narcissists who are in the news right now, the Tate brothers are currently in prison and feeling very
CarolineHooray. What's making us happy this week?
AnnePalate cleanser. Andrew Tate is suffering in prison. Poor baby. I would've thought that given h- what an alpha male he is, that he would be, like, in charge of everything by now and have, like, his loyal followers and be, like, totally dominating it. I'm so shocked he's not.
CarolineI'm living for his tweets about how hard it is to be forced to drink a water you don't wanna drink. That must be really hard to be forced to do something you don't wanna do.
Annewanna do Yes, I'm living for those, for his suffering.
CarolineWhy does he have access to freaking social media anyway? I don't understand.
AnneI don't know. He's probably, like, feeding it out to his lawyer.
CarolineMm
AnneWell, yeah, We've talked in the past about people who think they're the hero of their own story, like Jason from Stranger Things season Kim says, he was always spouting self-aggrandizing, nonsensical bullshit. he would comment on his own article and respond to things on Facebook, and there's so much of blame. Like, it's always someone else. every surgery was textbook. Every surgery was perfect. If it went wrong, it's because that patient was too heavy or the, anesthesiologist, gave her fentanyl. It's never his fault. And we see that in the police interview, which is really the only actual footage they have of him
CarolineRight. Right.
Anneand he blames Kirby and Henderson for conspiring against him, and thank God they did.
CarolineYeah
Anneand back to the football scene, when he realizes he sucks at football, he claims he's over it. "It feels beneath me," he says,
CarolineMm-hmm.
Anneego-covering excuse. One thing I was trying to find, there's that scene where he's in a bar doing, and I'm putting in quotes, "stem cell research." cause I think he was just reading about stem cells while high. And he's performing, like, his p-poetry? think that was
Carolineyeah. I was curious about that too, 'cause I didn't hear anything about that in the, like, follow-up podcast episodes, you know? don't remember...
Annequestions
CarolineYeah
AnneNow, I've never done anything like LSD, and I'm sure there will be people who disagree with me about the opening up your mind aspect of those sort of things. But I, definitely scoff at Christopher Duntsch, like, studying on acid or whatever he was doing. and they ha- he jokes LSD and everyone has a good old chuckle about it. But, I don't think that makes you a better researcher or neurosurgeon
CarolineCocaine maybe. But not,
AnneHere we are with our pro-cocaine message again.
Carolinenot, I wouldn't, I wouldn't think LSD would
AnneNo. And there's also, the delusions of grandeur in the famous Occam's Razor email. where he says, I'm ready to leave the love and kindness and goodness and patience that I mix with everything else and become a cold-blooded killer." So he was writing this to Kim, and I believe it was weeks before Jerry? Is that right?
CarolineI think so. I think,
Annewho he paralyzed What do you think about the email?
CarolineI'm glad they had it. I think regardless of intent, and I know intent is important in crime in particular in, assigning the type of crime and the type of, penalty. I don't think it shows intent, but I do think it shows willingness. I do think it shows that he is indifferent to whether he causes death
AnneIt shows sociopathy, if not intent
CarolineMm-hmm. Yeah
Annethey were kind of like it didn't really matter, right? We believed there was intent with or without the email. So when the appeal was trying to get a retrial without the email, I'd like to think it wouldn't matter, that they would still find him guilty with or without that. I think it gives insight into who he is and how he views himself.
CarolineIf it were one or two cases instead of 30-something cases, it would be a more significant piece of evidence. But knowing that there was also 30-plus bad outcomes and it was not deterring him, and in addition he had this callous attitude,
AnneYeah, Lisa on Real Crime Profile talks about his callous disregard, which is a sociopathic trait,
CarolineMm-hmm.
Annethat she says it's normal for doctors to be arrogant, Arrogance is maybe something
CarolineOh, yeah
Annein a surgeon, but they still generally have empathy, and m- generally they get into it not just for the money, because they also wanna help people, and they're also really smart I have students who, you know, I have one of my, one of my favorite students was just taking the UCATs last week, which is the getting into medical school Australian test. And she is so smart and such a good kid and so intellectually curious, and I feel like every kid I've had who's like wanting to be a good, a doctor, I'm like, "Yes, you will be great." these are good, smart people. And I think about how hard those kids work in high school as well, and then the years of commitment and hardworking and the underlying intelligence it takes. Like how do you do that on vibes? Right? He must be smart
CarolineYeah
Anneat least through the first decade of his life in schooling I found some comments on Reddit, from people who claim they worked with him during his residency, the word most getting thrown around was douchebag. So one person mentioned him making a joke about the genitalia of a patient. obviously just someone on Reddit, right? Like, they could be making it up, but that was
CarolineMm. Yeah Well, I think it was Dr. Kirby who was like, if he had just stayed in research, he was brilliant, and he did have good ideas that I think things were then built from, he just should never... He had no business in surgery
AnneDysgenics is still around. I found an Oxygen article from a few years back saying they're conducting trials of their stem cell technology in Japan. she says, "I question if you understand the most basic science." So I don't know. I mean, maybe it's not a bad idea that you could use stem cells to spine cells, but that his research was bullshit from what... I
CarolineWell, I mean
AnneKirby said on the podcast,
CarolineNo, I mean, I, I was listening to it and it, it was like he was good. He, like, he should have just stuck with research and done that, and it would've been fine. he didn't understand surgery, but he didn't not understand, anatomy, I don't think
AnneKirby says he doesn't understand anatomy, but
CarolineWell,
Anneleft,
Carolineyeah.
Annemean,
CarolineI...
Annenot know the difference between muscle and bone,
CarolineYeah
Annethat was one of the things they really point out, like if you're drilling into muscle when you are supposed to be drilling into bone or, or vice versa, right? Like, that should be obvious
CarolineMm-hmm.
AnneBut like
CarolineMm-hmm
AnneLike that scene with, I think it's Earl Burke, whose wife died, he expresses concern, and he, like, talks him down successfully. He's like, "I'm a surgeon, Earl. This is what I do. I attended one of the top universities in this nation. I got an MD in molecular biology. I can go on listing those credentials." he so willing to toot his own horn, which I guess you have to be, but he actually doesn't have the competence to back it up
Carolineand he also has the pedigree. I remember I grew up in a town where the public school was, like, competing for number one with another town in the area, very, very, very competitive. And not only was it a very cutthroat and mean environment, but, there was a lot of like, pay-to-play type situations happening. And so I remember saying to my husband, like, "We wanna be at like number eight." You know? Like, we don't, we don't wanna be in that like cutthroat crazy environment where you don't even know how many of those people are Aunt Becky-ing their situation,
AnneBig Little Lies type of community
CarolineYeah, and how many, like, actually have the intelligence and have what it takes or whatever. So that's what we, we... Our town was, like, number eight when we moved here
Annehigher end of mediocrity is good, right?
CarolineMm-hmm.
Anneanother thing with the incompetence, and they, they really make a point of this, obviously the football scene you mentioned, the lack of attention to detail, losing his keys, and then they show a scene where he's putting a crib together and, can't do it,
CarolineYeah.
Annewhich is something I'm pretty damn good at, so maybe I should be a surgeon.
CarolineI'm very good at putting together things with clear instructions as well.
AnneYes. Well, he had clear instructions,
CarolineYeah
Anneon the podcast, Kirby describes an interior lumbar fusion as one of the easiest things a spinal doctor can do, right? So for a doctor, theoretically these things should be easy as putting together IKEA furniture for someone like me or you I listened to this podcast. I have the note written down somewhere what it's called... i'll, it eventually. But it's two nurses, and they're t- discussing medical crimes, and they were especially appalled by not knowing or choosing to ignore the difference between soft tissue and bone, where the screw
CarolineMm-hmm.
Annesupposed to go into. Like, they were like, How could anyone not know this?" all right. So we've established he wasn't competent. He was a narcissist. I think he was a sociopath, whether it he was meaning to do this or not.
CarolineMm-hmm.
Anneterms of why he was the way he was, Patrick McManus, the, showrunner says in a Collider article I found interviewing him, "I genuinely don't believe we will ever be able to a- answer who Christopher Duntsch was and why he was, and it was not my intention, nor was it our writers' intentions once we got into the writers' room to answer that question in full. Our intent was to present the story as best as we could and then allow audiences to take away from it whatever they would like to, because I just don't believe that we can answer why someone like Christopher Duntsch is the way he is."
CarolineNo
AnneSo that is the essential question. as Dr. Henderson says in episode one, either he's the most incompetent surgeon I've ever crossed paths with, or he's a sociopath and he's doing this all on purpose. hard to know.
CarolineMm-hmm.
AnneDo you think other than him is most responsible for all this?
CarolineBaylor Plano.
Annejustice was not done
CarolineYeah. Baylor Plano
AnneYeah
CarolineI mean, yes, of course, first of all, his residency and the program that he was in not ensuring that he achieved the hours. I mean, the spread between the number of hours he did and the number of hours you would expect is staggering. so I think it was, like, 100 to over 1,000 or something, was ex-
Anneto 2,500
Carolineyeah, was ex-
Annethe norm
Carolinehe should not have been given a letter of recommendation at all in the first place. then
AnneKirby says references are the bedrock to his bullshit.
CarolineRight.
AnneScadden, who is not Dr. Scadden in real life, I think it was two doctors who kind of were involved with his fellowship and residency, and then also invested in Discogenics, let him slide on that charisma and potential financial payout.
CarolineRight
Annedoctors like him legitimized him to begin with
CarolineAnd then the first place he goes to in Dallas is Baylor Plano, right? and it's clear, the nurse comes forward. there's a clear issue and nothing is done about it, and then they try to save their own hide. how much could he possibly have sued them for,
Anneand she says, "I'm not scared of you." Like, wouldn't they have the best legal teams, like more than an individual?
Carolineyou know, I worked at a nonprofit that had insurance for people to file claims that were unjust, you have insurance for that. As a fricking major huge hospital, and the fact that they still, like, haven't, confessed to any wrongdoing of any kind, I mean, it's, disgusting.
Annethe letter they gave him was, "All areas of concern with regard to Christopher D. Duntsch have been closed. As of this date, there have been no summary or administrative restrictions or suspension of Duntsch's medical staff membership clinical privileges w- during the time he has practiced at Baylor Regional Medical Center at Plano." So that is a lie,
CarolineJuly.
Annehe was suspended, and there were horrific outcomes. So they were fined $100,000, which is nothing for
CarolineNothing
Annehospital like that. But then they didn't even pay it. It was withdrawn. So they experienced no consequences other than some public shame by people who know about this.
CarolineWell, and did you, listen to the whole, Billboard debacle, right?
AnneYeah, Billboard Gate. Wondery put up a billboard, and
CarolineMm-hmm.
Annea day it was taken down and because the billboard was the hospital. So of course they had something to do with it, right? Of course, they were like, "You need to take this down or we will
CarolineMm-hmm.
Annein all the ways we have." So yeah, lies by omission, and then he was able to continue.
CarolineMm-hmm.
Anneand then the Texas Medical Board is also partially at fault because it's like, you know, Mrs. Kintner in Jaws saying to Brody, You knew there was a shark out there, you knew it was dangerous, and you let people go swimming anyway," and they let him continue. I don't see why they couldn't just suspend, even if they're like, "We need to research this and double-check," why not suspend? Why is he allowed to keep going when there's-- he's had these outcomes?
CarolineListen, I remember when I took PR in college, they were like, "Tylenol is the best example of what to do when you hit a crisis," right? When the Tylenol, situation happened with the cyanide in the Tylenol. the fact that they, like, recalled everything, and they put out ads, and they did press conferences and everything. I mean, now, however many years later... Is it 40 years later? We know it was probably someone who worked at Tylenol, which was not the message they went with at the time. But either way, they figured out a way to stop the deaths from happening. and then the truth came out anyway, so it's like, I think the truth is gonna come out. You should just get ahead of it, and I'm not encouraging, white lies like what Tylenol did, which aren't even really white lies, but, at least they stopped people from dying
Annepeople from dying. Hit pause. And it's interesting that these organizations are so terrified of being sued by someone like Christopher Duntsch, but yet his victims' opportunities for financial compensation are so limited, right?
CarolineWell,
Annebecause we have a country that values
CarolineYeah, because we're in late-stage capitalism, and this is how it works.
AnneI mean, there needs to be a balance of understanding that doctors make mistakes, complications do happen, and allowing the reality of that, but not allowing a bad actor like Christopher Duntsch to continue
CarolineRight. Like I remember growing up, my grandmother's best friend who didn't have any kids, so she was like a grandma to me, she was a pathologist, and she would always say, "We still don't know more about the human body than we do now." Now, I don't know if that's still true because she's been gone for like 20 years now, so maybe we do know more. But I think that it's okay that we wanna have the benefit of the doubt and that we don't wanna be like sending people to jail for like a genuine good effort. But like 30-something, I mean, there should be five, you know? Like five should kind of be the limit I would guess
AnneYeah.
CarolineI do wanna say my other favorite scenes are just with Henderson and Kirby. it's really f- a fun, energetic dynamic
AnneI loved Christian Slater in this so much. He was nomin- both he and Joshua Jackson were nominated for Critic's Choice Awards. So I'm glad he's sort of been rediscovered since I, I think it
CarolineMm-hmm.
Annewhen he started kind of
CarolineMm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
AnneChupa?
CarolineNo
AnneOh, it's so delightful. It's on Netflix, He's basically kind of, like, dressed like, Dr. Alan Grant. RIP Sam Neill.
Caroline嗯。
Annebut he's evil. he's, like, trying to find a chupacabra, and then there's these kids, trying to save it and keep it a secret from, like, the bad evil scientists. And
Caroline嗯。
Annekids movie. It makes me cry. I really highly recommend it. It's like E.T. vibes Um,
CarolineNo, I love him so much. I know he's had, like, personal issues and, don't condone past behaviors, but it sounds like since he's been clean, things have been better for him, and I'm glad about that
AnneMm-hmm. he's a maverick in cowboy boots, and he's just this real, like, dog with a bone, aggressively going after Duntsch. And, in podcast, I think it was episode 11 or 12, the real Dr. Kirby
CarolineMm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Anneinterview each other. Did you end up listening to that one?
CarolineYeah, I listened to all of it. the last one I listened to was today, the panel, of all the people except Alec Baldwin.
AnneYeah, why didn't he... Well, maybe he was involved in his case
CarolineHe might have been. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm
AnneYeah, I'm not sure when that happened in relation to all this, but well, yeah, Dr. Kirby gets all the best, comic relief lines. Like He says, Ted Bundy was a good worker, too." And I think he seems like a person I would find a little bit too intense in real life. Like Imagine, having opera night. I don't know. That's like a little too high energy for me.
Carolinelooks so fun though.
Annefar off.
CarolineMm-mm
Annelike shoe size and height. It was very cute.
CarolineYeah, I thought that episode was really sweet too. It really seemed like Christian Slater was the one, eagerly wanting the approval of him, you know? Which, but then he was also like, "I've loved you since Heathers," you know? Like, it was really cute. It was adorable
Anneand yeah, they acknowledged the dynamic you were talking about, that Henderson is more reserved and conservative, and, Kirby is the squeaky wheel, the dog with the bone. And, on the show, he says, "I wanna break his goddamn hands." And on the podcast, which at this point he had only seen episode one of the show, he actually says, "I wanted to take a scalpel to his wrist," like this is the
CarolineMm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Annehim in surgery to stop him." So and he even jokes about getting the mafia involved, like anything to take him out in terms of contrasting characters, when you l- contrast Kirby with Duntsch, I love that scene where they introduce themselves
CarolineMm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
AnneKirby's like, "I'm Randy," and Dr. Duntsch is like, "Full name, MD, PhD," or something to that effect, and Kirby's like, Did they have to enlarge the door to get your nor- your head through it?" And yeah, it just, the chemistry with Dr. Henderson, their buddy detective kind of partnership,
CarolineI had a note here about Henderson and Kirby that they have a very Hooper/Brody vibe
AnneYeah. Yeah. I like it. Definitely.
Carolineit was a nice pairing. It was the thing that, like, stuck with me that made me be like, it was really fun to watch, you know, when I mentioned wanting to do this with you. it sounds like it was very true to life. w- in that episode with the interview, like, he was like, "Oh, yeah, Henderson, like, wanted to kill me. He's much more conservative," but, like, he had those recordings and it, it was also nice. You know, I feel like we are way beyond a time when you could have shows like 30 Rock or Parks and Rec where you have this sort of pairing where there are people who have ideological differences but respect each other as people. that used to be a regular thing in our lives and in our atmosphere that we were used to, and now it's like that is not a thing that occurs. So it was, like, refreshing to see that type of thing
AnneThe real Michelle Shugart said Dr. Henderson taught her neurosurgery and Dr. Kirby got her the dirty stuff, or something
CarolineMm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Annesomebody points out, for as much as we are criticizing Duntsch, doctors who let him through on his residency and his fellowship without performing the right amount of surgeries, and Baylor, like, doctors are also the heroes of this story. They're the ones who stuck their necks out, risking their own legal liability to stop him. how
CarolineMm-hmm.
AnneI also love all his, metaphors.
CarolineMm-hmm.
Annego after your pizza with pliers, it's splatter painting, he's like a child playing with Tinkertoys. He calls him a hot air balloon.
Carolinethere was one scene where he's like, "Did you hear those goobers in there?" I'm like, "Goobers?" I do.
AnneI love the word goobers. That's a great word. Yeah. side note, there's one scene where, Dr. Kirby's typing, and he, like, can't type. He's,
CarolineYeah.
Anneat the...
CarolineYeah, yeah, yeah.
Annereally probably pretty accurate about doctors, right? I do have a little bit of trouble taking Alec Baldwin seriously because of 30 Rock, Like, I keep expecting him to kind of break character and say something funny because Donaghy is also a serious character, but then he's delivering funny lines in a serious tone
CarolineI have that problem when I see Christopher Meloni in SVU. I always, imagine him in Wet Hot American Summer.
AnneSummer? Yeah, yeah, yeah. it took me a while to get used to Ozark, because of Jason Bateman
CarolineMm-hmm. Michael
AnneMichael Bluth. Yeah. Yeah, I think the scene that you already talked about with Henderson, is a great opening scene. I think it actually opens with, like, zooming in on Christopher Duntsch's eyes, like dead
CarolineYeah
AnneBut then I think the second scene maybe is Dr. Henderson's revision surgery, I just wanna read, what he says. I, stopped to write it down. structure has been severed from the underlying spine. It's just flopping. It provides no protective benefit to the nerves. Underneath you can see fragments of bone piercing the nerves. The dura is leaking spinal fluid. It looks like putty just smashed in there. What did he do to her?" none of that sounds good I think they did a good job people who aren't doctors, their audience is not gonna be doctors, of using doctors' dialogue to make us understand what we need to understand without too much exposition. The way they discuss surgery felt natural. Like, they're talking about how it took four hours for a lateral fusion, and like, I think at that point they don't explain what a lateral fusion is, and they don't explain how much time it takes, but like we understand this shouldn't be so long. This should be child's play for them, and that's all we need to know.
CarolineI mean, that's probably a combination of the writers and, Christian Slater mentions in the follow-up episodes that his brother-in-law is a vascular surgeon, and Kirby says to him, like, You seemed like you knew what you were talking about." Like, It was convincing. Um, so I think that was very helpful.
Annepeople on
CarolineHe s- he said there was a doctor on staff as well, but yeah
Anneanother scene that I really liked was in the trial. They have, a scene of all the cuts of the different people testifying, how it started and what he said and how they felt when they woke up, and then the impacts on their lives, and I think it just really hammered home, and I, maybe I shouldn't be making a hammering reference, but like how many people he damaged, and that ripple effect on their families and jobs, you know, not just on them.
CarolineMm-hmm.
AnneOne of my criticisms of this and I know I'm skipping to criticism, but I found the time jumps hard to follow. Did you?
CarolineWell, I would have, but they had all the giant Chirons and stuff like that. It made it hard to remember in prior episodes what had happened before or after the scene I was watching now. because they did so much of it,
AnneYeah. I compiled a timeline a ProPublica article called "A Surgeon So Bad It Was Criminal." So basically, the degrees, the MD and PhD were in two thousand and one, two thousand and two. And then he did his residency and fellowship when he did a hundred operations when he should have done at least a thousand. Some reports of drug use in this time, which we haven't discussed yet. Someone made an anonymous complaint about him at this time. In the show, they imply it was Kayla, his ex, but I couldn't confirm that, that it was her. Two thousand and eight, he launched Disgenex. In twenty ten, he finished his residency at University of Tennessee. Then he did his fellowship at Semmes Murphey's clinic in Memphis. he moved to Dallas, and he worked at the Minimally Invasive Spine Institute in July two thousand and eleven, and that's when he got his surgical privileges at Baylor and his six hundred thousand dollar advance.
CarolineMm-hmm.
AnneSo this is where it starts. December two thousand and eleven, that's the Occam's Razor email. late December two thousand and eleven is Lee Passmore. That's with the misplaced hardware. is when a surgeon tried to grab the scalpel off of him, and Passmore still lives with chronic pain. In January twenty twelve about a month later, Barry Morguloff, who I think they call Joe Padua. This is Kirby's pool guy, and
Caroline嗯。
Annethe one that Dr. Kirby was in the room for. So this is pretty early that Dr. Kirby witnessed this, he tried to wrench the disc out instead of using a scalpel. Morguloff still walks with a cane and is in constant pain. Month later, twenty twelve, Jerry Summers, his friend, who woke up paralyzed, and at this point, he was suspended at Baylor for thirty days, which they don't
CarolineMm-hmm.
Annein his letter of recommendation or whatever. Like, he was suspended. March twenty twelve, Kelly Martin, who I'm pretty sure they call Shelly Brennan. She's the teacher. He caught a blood vessel. She died April 2012, Baylor allows him to resign with a clean letter and does not report him. July 2012, he gets his privileges at Dallas Medical Center. Floella Brown, who they call, I think, Dorothy Burke, Mary Efurd, this is the woman the show calls Madeline Beyer, and this is where Josh the nurse sees the hole in the scrubs. So this is kind of where it starts.
CarolineMm-hmm.
Annelike midway through his career when it starts, and then
CarolineYeah
AnneAnd this is the one that Henderson, Madeline Beyer/real-life Mary Efurd, who was the one Henderson was called in to fix. this is when Henderson files the official complaint with the Texas Medical Board. Dallas Medical Center also allows him to resign despite two out of three horrifically botched surgeries matter of days. But his career is only half over. December 2012, cut the vocal cords of Jacqueline Troy. She was the one who lost her voice.
CarolineMm-hmm.
AnneJanuary 2013, reported to the National Practitioner Data Bank by Methodist Hospital. May 2013, still given new privileges, at University General Hospital, this is where he operated on Jeff Glidewell in May 2013. I think he's called Stan Novak. This is the one who had a bad feeling, like saw a black cat, had a muscle removed that Dr. Duntsch thought was a tumor, sewed him up with a sponge inside. He's still
CarolineWasn't it his esophagus?
AnneI think he cut his, yeah, he might
CarolineIt was his esophagus that he said was a tumor
AnneThis is another one Kirby stepped in on and said it was attempted murder. And then in June 2013, Kirby wrote the medical board, "Christopher Duntsch, Texas Medical Board license number N8183 is an impaired physician, a sociopath, and must be stopped from practicing medicine." And finally, in June 2013, over a year after Jerry Summers to stop operating, and finally his medical license is suspended, permanently revoked in December 2013. when you put it into the order, like how early it was that these bad things happened, I think they made the time jumps to make that, to emphasize that, but I found it confusing,
Carolinethis is why there is a phrase, "Oh, to have the confidence of a mediocre white man." Because I just can't imagine that a woman with these outcomes or a person of color with these outcomes would've had the same success
AnneI have the same note. Would this have happened to a woman? despite the misgivings of your supervisors, you'd get the go-ahead
CarolineMm-mm.
Anneacted the part.
CarolineAbso-fucking-lutely not.
Annehow much does being a former football player play into this? Because I think we put sporty individuals on pedestals as a society. we trust and view former college athletes as authoritative, there's a lot of former athletes in politics. Like, not necessarily like they were pro or big names as athletes, but it's like, "Oh, he played college football," and like that's something we value,
CarolineI was not an athletic person ever. I have married into an athletic family, and I understand more than I ever did before as an arts person, the elements of determination, commitment, the concept of a team. Like, there are wonderful things that playing a sport teaches you, having gumption. we love that John Cena book about gumption. Like,
AnneOh, yes. I love that book.
CarolineYeah.
Annegot gumption.
Carolinegumption. Yeah, so like, you know, we, I, I, what is it called?
AnneElbow grease.
CarolineElbow grease. Yeah.
AnneElbow grease,
CarolineYeah. it's all important things, but so few people end up being professional athletes. It is amazing what they can do with their bodies. All of it is wonderful, but there are other amazing, wonderful, very impactful in different ways things that people do, like being doctors that save lives, stuff like that, that maybe we could be honoring at the same level that we don't. Or teachers
AnneTeachers should be more valued.
CarolineMm-hmm.
AnneWe put up with a lot. what did you think about Kim? At one point, Michelle Shughart shows sympathy for her reluctance to testify and says that she's been through a lot, and Kirby's like, "If you ask me, she hasn't been through enough."
Carolineう ん。
AnneWhat do you think? Kim is his girlfriend who was his surgical assistant and eventually left him and kind of to escape basically the whole situation by joining the Air Force and put it behind her
CarolineYes. So one thing I will say is that listening to that last episode today, the woman who played Kim was mentioning, like, this woman has no interest in being a part of this, doesn't wanna be found, so, like, all of this is really speculative based on information people have. So I'm gonna deal with the Kim that I saw in the show. First of all, why is she wearing heels at a pool? I don't understand. Immediately I was like, "I don't like this person."
AnneYeah
Carolineand then of course she comes on very aggressively, and she's really not dressed professionally for an interview, in my opinion. and I'm a very... I mean, I'm a very, very casual person, but, you know, for an interview I, probably would wear a bra at least. I don't know.
AnneYeah.
CarolineUm,
Annewonder if that's true.
CarolineI don't... I, yeah
Annestraight from, like, a vacation. Like, she came
Carolinehas her suitcase, right?
AnneI don't know what she was wearing,
CarolineYeah. And I don't know how hard she came on. I don't know whether she really do... I, it sounds like she did not know. But I don't know how you can work in the same office that the girlfriend who's pregnant is also working in and have no idea
AnneI mean, he's a manipulative, charismatic person
Carolinehe's not the only other person there. Like, there's other people around. maybe you have a willingness to ignore the signs. Yeah, yeah. To...
AnneI think, is a major theme
CarolineSure
Annehe's denying his own incompetence. People around him are looking at his pedigree and denying that this could be possible. Maybe his dad is trying to his denial, but deep down he knows his son is a bad person. It does seem, though, with his dad that in reality he was more supportive. the dad plays him on this as seeing through him. I don't, I don't know if that's true in real life
CarolineIt doesn't seem like it is from the little that we know again. So it's like, uh, it's hard to talk about the characters that we actually have less evidence about in real life. But I do feel like she's got, She definitely has some blame, but I do think she has clearly regret. She's not a
AnneYeah
Carolinepsychopath. I think she, like you said, just couldn't allow herself to see the reality
AnneYeah. some people think that she was more active in allowing him to get it away, like that, you know when they talk about how the plans, like the surgical plans were right, but the execution was wrong. Some people are saying that, "Well, maybe she did the plans." Like, they do say that every single person in the room, credentials aside, could have done a better job than he
Carolineஉம், உம். உம்.
AnneI've always thought, "God, I hope I'm never tested like she was tested." since the Jerry Sandusky thing came out years ago at Penn State, and who was the, the actual coach, the famous coach whose legacy was destroyed?
CarolineI only remember Sandusky now.
AnneWell, there was the other coach who was, like, not a pedophile, but he overlooked it. He let, he let it happen, right?
CarolineYeah
Annehis legacy was destroyed as well. So I always think, okay, if I'm ever in a situation where I am suspicious, not to let it go, to report up, to put things into the light, you know?
CarolineJoe Paterno.
Annedo show her to a patient
CarolineMm-hmm
Anneyou should you know, get a second opinion. What do you think you would do if you were about to go into surgery? Would you, take that nurse's meaningful eye contact and implication and get out of there
CarolineHmm. Well, I'm a high anxiety person, so probably
AnneYeah. I wonder will I approach future surgeries differently? Because when I had surgery, I don't even know if I Googled my surgeon's name because I just trusted that my primary care doctor had recommended this person based on a relationship or outcomes, and I just went with it, right? Like, that's what you think, and my surgery was fine, but I think I will be more careful in the future to get multiple opinions and make sure... ask, actually know this doctor?"
Carolineunfortunately for me, the first thought I had was, how much am I on the hook for if I don't have the surgery? You know? Like, y-
Anneof this business of healthcare.
Carolinehaving it not be something that is just a right, that is just covered, really does control so much of the way that we live.
Annethere's sunk cost fallacy, which we've discussed a lot,
CarolineMm-hmm.
Annethat horror like, "Well, I've come this far. I've paid for this many appointments and how could I back out now?"
CarolinePaid for this on top of insurance, and I missed work, time off that
Anneyou missed
CarolineI don't have much of, it compounds
AnneOn the podcast they say talk to nurses, that they know
CarolineI think the thing that's hard about that when I was listening to that is that, doctors age just like people do, so you're gonna need to allow for new doctors to come about. I had two of my kids at a teaching hospital, and I was like happy to be doing that, cause I was like, please bring them in. I want there to be people who, you know,
AnneYeah
Carolineknow what they're doing." And I, I mean, it wasn't gr- my first anesthesiologist like totally missed, messed up like three times, and then the guy had to take over. But like, you know, I think it's a positive thing anyway
AnneYeah. Well, yeah, I know my, doctor who was heavily recommended by my father-in-law, who's a general a GP, a general practitioner, and this particular obstetrician had babies for several people in our family. But then when I had my second child with him, he forgot to order the glucose test. The, I just never had it, and then I kinda got to the end, I was like, "I never had that." and he was old by that point, know? And I was fine. I, I didn't have gestational diabetes, but I was just like, "Oh,"
CarolineYeah. That's a big deal.
AnneYeah.
CarolineIt's kind of a big deal
Anneyeah, I think, one of the deeper horrors is this is our healthcare system, and that it's for profit. that Baylor chief executive who's kissing his ass to get him to sign on at Baylor is... This is all the business of back surgery. And again, I don't know how true to life those scenes were. But she says, "I'm gonna lift the velvet rope for you. I'm gonna build your brand." And it feels like brand shouldn't be a part of this.
CarolineMm-hmm.
Annea service. It should be.
Carolinethose people also give money to the elected officials who then create the tort reform
AnneYes. quote from the podcast is, "Hospitals are businesses and neurosurgeons are money, and they make a profit off of every neurosurgery performed, and there's a lot of bad backs out there." So a deeper horror is that the value of spinal surgery to a hospital complicates a decision to let go of somebody like Christopher Duntsch so broken
CarolineMm-hmm.
AnneWhat did you think of Michelle Sugart?
CarolineI thought it was amazing that that actress, learned how to play basketball for the role.
AnneYeah, right? Did you recognize her? She's Lacey from The Act, the neighbor who's nice to Gypsy Rose
CarolineNo, I didn't remember that. Oh, wow.
Anne"I know I recognize her," and it's her, yeah.
CarolineI-
Annethose, uh, Disney Pixar princess eyes, like big eyes.
CarolineI thought she was great. I thought it was interesting to have the whole like, "Oh, she's young," and, and all of that sit- that was like the one, negative thing against Kirby. that was true
Anneif that's
Carolineto it didn't seem like it wa- 'cause Christian Slater asks him about it, and he's like, "No, I..." You know, like it...
Annelike, "I was like someone was taking it
CarolineYeah, exa- exactly. Yeah.
AnneSo he
CarolineIt's out of character anyway for a guy like him
AnneYeah. one thing I noted when they're about to go back to the get the jury's verdict and Dr. Kirby and Dr. Henderson are eating and she picks up a fry and then puts it back, that's something I would never do.
CarolineNo.
Annepick up a fry, I am eating it.
CarolineNo
AnneI am definitely a stress eater. the criminal case I thought was very interesting. to me, it seems morally open and shut. Legally, is it? There is that slippery slope that could prevent doctors from doing their jobs because they say that neurosurgery is tap dancing on a razor blade, but I am very glad that he is in jail
CarolineMm-hmm.
Annejust that intent, I think continuing is enough
CarolineTotally. Agree.
AnneAnd, you know, the defense tried to muddy the waters by blaming the system and they're not wrong,
CarolineMm-mm.
Annethere's a lot that went into allowing this to happen. But at that point, his fellowship and residency surgeons aren't on trial. Baylor isn't on trial. I think they should be put on trial,
CarolineAgree.
Anneseparate issue. We haven't talked about Jerry yet. Poor Jerry
CarolinePoor Jerry
AnneIn the podcast, he is described as, less pathetic than he's played in this. Like, he has a girlfriend. I think he's just a guy who was in Duntsch's orbit. but yeah, in this they really make him much more of a loser, I thought, than
CarolineYeah,
Annewas in real life.
CarolineI agree.,
AnneI hate the way it's this double hit sucker punch for Jerry of being paralyzed, but also then dropped and abandoned by someone you idolized. don't get in deep with a narcissist
CarolineMm-hmm.
AnneThe real Jerry's case is very sad. His girlfriend stuck with him for a while, and then he was ramming people, ramming her with his wheelchair. He was so angry about what happened to him. and he died in 2021
CarolineAlready died from an infection related to his circumcision.
AnneDr.
CarolineHe, he, he's a victim, yeah.
AnneThe only time I did not feel sorry for Jerry was when he was getting a lap dance and he said, "Thanks for the mammaries."
CarolineMm-hmm.
AnneI was Like, so gross. Do you think Christopher Duntsch surrounds himself with people who will adore him?
CarolineYes
Annea woman who he picks up as a, a stripper, that she would feel elevated to be in the orbit of this neurosurgeon,
CarolineWell, and I think it's clear in the way that they wrote his character f- for Joshua Jackson to play out that, he expects her to feel that way about him in comparison to her. It's very clear he sees her as less than him,
AnneOh, he says some awful things to her, um
CarolineI'm so sick of this in, like, TV. A false positive is really, really, really rare.
AnneFor pregnancy? Yeah, you
CarolineYeah.
Annenegatives,
CarolineRight. I'm so-
Anneare there or they're not there
CarolineI've seen this, like, multiple times where people are like, "False positives happen." It's like, no, they fucking don't. I mean, they, they do if you let your pee sit there on the count- I'm- sorry, disclaimer, I'm not a doctor. But like, it's really not a thing the way false negative is
AnneI was told specifically by a doctor false positives don't happen
CarolineOkay, good. Uh, 'cause I was also told that but I, I looked it up and it was like, it can happen, but it's very r- it's usually, like, you took the test and then you let it sit on the counter for, like, three hours and a line appears. Or you're taking other hormones like this crazy chick in Love Trapped, another podcast.
AnneOkay. I
CarolineYou should definitely listen. We- we're g- we, we should do it at some point. This girl is psycho
AnneWell, the way he talks about Wendy, it-- One thing he said, he calls her the pinnacle of human evolution, and that's a very manosphere way to talk, you think?
CarolineMm-hmm.
Annebut at the same time, he's so dismissive of her. She's only the pinnacle of evolution because of the way she looks,
CarolineRight.
AnneAnd he's gaslighting her. "This is what it's like to date a god. I picked you up out of the gutter, and I can throw you back there if you want. The best thing you can do is abort that fucking baby, and I'm saying that with love because I'm trying to help you win in life." Like, that scene is hard to take. It's so abusive.
CarolineIt is, and I love, I mean, I really like the way they wrote her, when she says, like, B-A-B-Y, which is a stupid way to say, "I'm pregnant," and then he's like, "How did that happen?" And she's like, "A stork fucked me." Like
AnneYeah, she was
CarolineShe was good.
Annewas. She, like, whispers a slogan for Dysgenics, and I don't think they tell us
CarolineOh, yeah. And what is a Silver City girl? wrote that down. He calls her that at one point.
AnneI'm guessing it's something dismissive
CarolineYeah
Anneshe came from. Also, when he's trying to reassure Kim that he's into her and he talks about basically offloading Wendy and her new baby within a few weeks, that's not sexy.
CarolineHmm.
AnneYou're the one who will be offloaded soon enough
CarolineIf he'll do it for you, he'll do it to you
AnneOh, just one thing about the Wendy, Christopher Duntsch relationship. I think a lot of that would probably be pretty made up because sh- didn't she refuse to talk?
CarolineMm-hmm. Mm-hmm
AnneSo this is fictionalized, as is the relationship between his dad. They do have some recordings from the jail, but, they don't really know, right? Wouldn't necessarily cooperate. I liked the character of Josh, the nurse
CarolineMe too. Me too.
AnneI recognized him from Good Lord Bird, which we talked about a few weeks ago in our Blackphone episode because Ethan Hawke is in that.
CarolineMm-hmm.
AnneIn real life, his name is Kyle Kissinger, and he's one of the many people who were brave enough to step out of that hierarchy and break that chain of command, knowing his voice was unlikely to be heard going up against a neurosurgeon
Carolineit does aggravate me, that element of hierarchy and, like, placating ego and stuff like that my day job is related to medical as well, and it, I don't think it helps any- I don't understand the point
AnneYeah. Lisa Beale, the host, said that a lot of people have reached out to her since the podcast to be like, I wish I'd said something. Maybe this will give me the strength to say something in the future." do you know about Jayant Patel? He's Queensland's Dr. Death, this all happened before, Christopher Duntsch. But basically, he had a bunch of botched surgeries in the US, and then came over, got a job at a regional hospital in Queensland, and did the same thing, and it was like they just didn't check.
CarolineMm-hmm.
Annekilled people in Queensland. And then he was convicted, but then the conviction was taken back on appeal, and he's now back in the US but not a doctor anymore. the reason I bring him up is it was a nurse who turned him in,
Carolineம்.
Anneenough to stop him. All right, What was the horrifying moment for you, if it's not something we've already discussed?
Carolinelearning about the tort reform
AnneYeah. Tort reform, let's talk about that in deeper horrors, cause I have some notes on that.
CarolineIt was also horrifying, the woman, when her vocal cords were cut and she woke up and it was like she can't talk anymore
AnneYeah. I just hated him-- I hated watching him and listening to him botch a surgery. Like, it, I could feel it almost, when he's, like, banging on something with a mallet. And maybe you do need to bang on things with hammers and mallets sometimes in these surgeries, but you know he's doing the wrong thing, and you can, like, hear the crunching bones, and it's just awful. And yeah, just Jerry, what happened to him and the way he was treated, that was the most upsetting thing for me. And the grossest moment was when Kirby cuts through the sutures in the follow-up to, I think, Stan Novak, 'cause the sponge was left in there and, like, the
CarolineMm-hmm.
Anneout. pretty nasty Harm beneath the surface. We've al-already talked about narcissistic sociopaths like and Andrew Tate and Dr. Christopher Duntsch. you wanna talk about tort reform?
CarolineYeah. I mean, for me, the horror beneath the surface is, I think our system is broken in so many ways, I don't even know where to begin fixing it you know? Like, there's the maximums on penalties that I don't know who it serves. made a note here that the thought behind the tort reform was that insurance premiums would go down, and as well it would attract a bunch of doctors to Texas. And,
Anneright?
Carolineno, insurance premiums went down for doctors only, not for any patients, and, there was n- absolutely no influx of doctors, to Texas as a result. So all they've done was protect potentially the perpetrators and not any potential victims There's the aggressively litigious nature of our culture which excuses or which justifies the argument that you should have these maximums, oh, well, someone's gonna sue me for hot coffee. Like everyone teased the lady from McDonald's, and they had a whole Seinfeld episode about it, and that woman was freaking scarred. That was not an unjustifiable lawsuit. That was very, very justified. it is horrible to see how many cards are stacked against victims, I guess
AnneYeah. I don't wanna talk on my ass too much because my understanding is on, Lisa Beale said a lot of, doctors and nurses contacted her after the podcast to be like, "Actually, medical malpractice is out of control,
CarolineRight.
Annethis stops us from doing our job." But in terms of frivolous lawsuits in general, I listened to the You're Wrong About about the McDonald's coffee lady. it was super interesting
CarolineMm-hmm.
Annethis highly litigious society that we live in, reason we live in this society is because unlike many other countries that have, some kind of independent body to regulate corporations, we have basically outsourced that the public, to the individual, So if you have a problem with a corporation, it's up to you to find somebody to take them to court. It's not up to somebody to regulate them. You know, to some extent. It's, I'm not saying there are no, there's no regulation.
CarolineWell, there's less and less every day.
AnneLess and less. they were basically saying that there was a moral panic about frivolous lawsuits around the time of the McDonald's coffee cup thing, and would that happen, Who benefits? The
CarolineRight
Annebelieving a moral panic that there's all these frivolous lawsuits, and a lot of the frivolous lawsuits that were discussed in articles and, you know, shared with the public, like, "Oh, look at how broken our system is. You can get sued for anything," a lot of them failed, right? Like, the courts worked the way they were supposed to, and the cases were thrown out. I also listened to this personal injury law podcast called Tort Reform: What You've Been Told Versus Reality, and I know we as a society mock personal injury law, right? And there's the
CarolineMm-hmm.
Anne"Don't ask a barber if you need a haircut," and don't ask a personal injury lawyer if, reform is bad. They're gonna say it is bad. But the host made a lot of valid points, like talked about how our world is a better, safer place because individuals have had access to the courthouse,
CarolineMm-hmm.
Annestopping chemicals in fertilizer, we have safer cars, and the ability to stop a bad doctor, which had that tort reform not taken place and those people had access to lawyers willing to take their cases, maybe Dr. Duntsch would've been stopped sooner.
CarolineI mean, I feel certain, first of all, that he never would've been given the letter of recommendation from Baylor Plano if they weren't a p- for-profit hospital that needed his money.
Anneit comes back to healthcare being a for-profit system and whose best interest is it to kneecap
CarolineRight
Annethe individuals? It's the corporations, it's the profit system that is, as you said, donating to our politicians. I'm not saying there aren't frivolous lawsuits, and I'm not saying that medical malpractice might not be out of control in some cases, right? Like, I do not know enough about it. But yeah, follow the money.
Carolineand I am not anti any form of capitalist. I think a socialist democracy is a good way to go. Not pure socialism, not pure communism. Like there's a lot of good blending of healthy competitive business and all of that with still providing basic human needs and making sure that systems that people need to survive, such as education, food, and healthcare are not put into this,
AnneThanks, AI
Carolinelike, are not put in under this umbrella of profit over everything. But like it really does feel, especially in this current administration, like everything is stacked against the common person,
AnneAnd the talking points that we see, whether it's on Seinfeld there for a reason. Who's putting those talking points out there? Which reminded me of Andor,
CarolineMm-hmm.
Anneyou see the Empire PR people planning to disparage a group, then you subtly see the talking points in their meeting reflected in the media, and then just amongst conversations between everyday people. Like, we are being manipulated.
Carolineas they say in Hamilton, follow the money and see where it goes. Who benefits from this story being out versus that story being out? And as the conglomerates keep consolidating and the people who own the media empires keep being fewer and fewer, and they have their own interest in mind, like, whose news are you reading? Mm-hmm.
Annesuddenly turns against a certain actor, woman in Hollywood, why is that happening?
CarolineMm-hmm.
Annewhy did we suddenly all hate Anne Hathaway, Like a decade ago or whatever it was
Carolinewhy do we suddenly all hate trans people when they've been around every generation that humans have been alive?
AnneYeah. somebody's putting those points out there way behind the scenes, and I think it's filtering through.
CarolineMm-hmm.
AnneAll right, other deeper horrors? have you ever had bad back pain?
CarolineYes. While pregnant.
AnneYeah. I, uh, threw out my back a few years ago, and I remember kind of like not really taking it seriously when I heard people talking about bad back pain, 'cause I get sore back from time to time. And when I threw out my back, I couldn't move. It was, such sharp pain. I, I could barely walk. It was so excruciating. So I really feel sympathy for the people who went to Christopher Duntsch looking for relief.
CarolineSure
AnneAnother deeper horror is that he could go from hospital to hospital and start over, like H.H. Holmes going from
CarolineHmm
Anneto city and, but it's not the late 1800s. Priests basically parish hopping, was actively done. Like this is more passive. They let it happen. killers going
CarolineMm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Anneor district to district when there was no communication between jurisdictions. So hospitals need to be more open about this.
CarolineYeah
AnneOkay, we've already talked about the systemic failure, the for-profit system. the hierarchy. in episode 13 of the podcast, Joshua Jackson, the actor, makes a veiled reference to, I think, Weinstein and Me Too in regards to speaking up in Hollywood, and I think a big message of this show is it may be hard, but, in a case like this, maybe we need to be the brave ones and speak up Another deeper horror is just the breach of trust. We wanna trust doctors, and being literally knocked out is such a place of vulnerability. I mean, you're vulnerable no matter what in a doctor's office, but you are literally incapacitated, in God's hands and Dr. Duntsch's hands, I think one of the patients says. uh, any other deeper horrors?
CarolineI wrote down Christian Slater at some point said, "Can't trust a place with a red wine milkshake on the menu." Red wine milkshake?
AnneEw.
CarolineSounds disgusting.
AnneThat is the most horrifying thing about this whole sh- whole show, that that exists.
CarolineAlso, there's one scene where they have a meeting at the DA's office and she's, like, standing. There's, like, two people standing. Like, at, I don't know what situation you'd be in where you're in a professional setting and you're
Annesomeone
Carolineat a full table where there's plenty of empty seats and people are standing. If you're in that situation, you should say something.
AnneYeah.
Carolineshould sit.
Anneinto hierarchy.
CarolineRight
AnneI wonder if that would be true, but maybe they were trying to establish that she was on a lower rung than this DA.
CarolineI'm sure they were, let's just say please welcome everyone to SIT.
AnneTake a seat.
CarolineYeah
Annequestions?
CarolineSo they mention in the post episodes about a potential brain injury related to
AnneCTA.
Carolinefootball, and I used to love l- football. I played fantasy. I was very, very into it, and then I learned about, from Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! about the percentage of people who have CTE from ever playing football any time in their life, it's, like, 80-something percent. close to 90, and the, and the percent that don't are, like, kickers. So, like,
AnneHernandez? Was he
Carolineyeah, I can't enjoy football anymore because it just makes me anxious, I guess, watching people hit each other
Annewould explain why he presented as smart and capable to
CarolineRight.
Annethrough his residency, and certainly getting his medical degree. That's not, that's not nothing,
CarolineRight
Annethen did these symptoms show up down the track as can happen?
CarolineAbsolutely, yeah.
Annehe's not looking into it, you
CarolineRight.
Annegive himself an out
CarolineThen he'd have to admit a deficiency on his own part, and he can't do that
Anneone of my questions is, you know, as we've said, neurosurgery is inherently risky. I'd be interested in the percentage of bad outcomes that the average surgeon has, like Dr. Henderson or Dr. Kirby. Dr. Henderson says he has had one bad surgery that haunts him, yeah, like how often does the average surgeon make mistakes? I don't think that's probably data I- you could find, but I would just be interested, if you took some other surgeon's 38 cases, how many bad outcomes would you have?
CarolineYeah. So this reminds me, you mentioned Dr. Henderson. in the show it sounds like they had a child who died in an accident or something? They, like, put flowers down by the road
AnneYeah, yeah, I remember vaguely
CarolineI don't remember hearing anything about that in the post. I guess, I, I should have looked into that, whether that was true and why you would include that. Was it his child or was it the surgery that he didn't successfully complete? That whole thing was not clear to me what the
AnneI don't remember really. maybe it was something that they wanted to kind of give him just a bit of a like, "I've lost in the past, and therefore I want to stop future loss from happening," kind of motivation?
CarolineMaybe
AnneWell, the final episode ends with the warning, "What happened here will happen again," while slowly zooming in on, Dr. Duntsch's shark eyes. So I guess I wanna know, have things changed? you know, when other doctor deaths come along, will there be systems in place to stop them, or will it only get worse because of, regulation and more focus on profit as we descend further into this capitalist hellscape?
CarolineI guess it depends on what country you live in
AnneYeah. Criticism
CarolineUm, I guess l- as you said, the jumping around made it hard to just remember what's already happened and what hasn't happened yet. I don't love Kelsey Grammer appearing in anything. Fuck that guy. Um,
Annebad?
Carolineyeah, he's problematic.
AnneOkay
CarolineThey mentioned the Dr. Phil Show, and I just wanted to mention, TCO has now started calling him just Phil 'cause he doesn't have a, a medical license. He's not a doctor of anything. You should just call him Phil. He's no doctor.
AnnePhil.
CarolineYeah.
AnneI liked the initial jump around, like starting with the most horrific couple days he had to show then that this had already happened and this continued to happen. But I thought the jumping around between, within episodes didn't accomplish much
CarolineMm-hmm.
AnneUh, showing Pacey as a sophomore, I'm showing
CarolineNo,
AnneJosh Jackson
CarolinePC.
Anneas a sophomore in college was a bit of a stretch for me. He did not look young,
CarolineMm-mm.
Annelike, I didn't like the fat suit and prosthetics. I found it distracting.
CarolineMe too
Annehe did gain weight as he unraveled, but it, it looked weird. I, I guess I would have preferred for his unraveling to have been communicated a less fake-looking way. And I don't think he... it, it felt a bit fat phobic to me
CarolineYeah, me too. Me too.
AnneYeah. All right, survival. do your research on your doctors, get a second opinion,
CarolineListening to nurses.
Annecontact with the nurses. Like, "Oh, this
CarolineMm-hmm.
AnneYou know? don't put these people on a pedestal, If you have misgivings, speak up. Not every doctor is gonna recognize your symptoms, as particularly on what demographic you're in. they're not perfect. They're... I think generally they're good, and they're doing their best, and they can absolutely be heroes. But if you have a bad vibe, as usual, take steps
CarolineYeah. Fuck politeness. Mm-hmm
Annewhen he's so rude to Josh in front of, a patient. Like men who are unkind to their mothers or unkind to their mothers of their children,
CarolineOr people who are root servers. yeah. Red flag.
AnneUh, support journalism.
CarolineMm-hmm.
Annefail, you know, short of a hard-to-win criminal case, sometimes journalism is the most effective way to take out someone who's a danger to society that the system is protecting. It worked with Harvey Weinstein. It worked with Catholic priests, which we discussed in past episodes
CarolineIf you can get past whoever owns where you write for.
AnneThis is why we need independent
CarolineMm-hmm. Independent, yeah
AnneYOLO as well. the husband, I think in episode two, is told that his wife is brain dead, and he talks about spending 30 years saving to buy a boat, and he's like, "Why'd it take us so long to buy that boat?" don't wait for retirement to live your dreams. You may not get there. No, I don't know. Don't buy a boat, right? Don't people who buy boats regret it?
CarolineYeah, it's not a great investment, but take the trip.
AnneTake the trip,
CarolineHave the experience. Yeah,
AnneStart your podcast.
CarolineI guess the only other thing I will say in terms of survival, in your professional setting or whatever, there have been situations I've been in professionally where we discovered a problem, and I didn't write down who said this in the show, but somebody says, "What's gonna happen when people find out you had an opportunity to stop him and you didn't?"
AnneYep
CarolineAnd I made that exact argument, when I was like, "Look, we can either keep doing this, or we can stop it now because we are aware something bad is going on, and. yes, you make a lot of money off of this, but what happens when people find out that we knew this was happening and we didn't do anything about it?"
AnneIf it does eventually come out, you definitely look worse for hiding it.
CarolineYou gotta expect it's gonna
AnneWell, I wonder how much it doesn't,
Carolinephrase though?
Anneat the ones that came out we know that Harvey Weinstein did get caught. We know that the priests did get find out, found out in Spotlight. Dr. Duntsch was discovered, but, like, maybe there's all these cases and it never comes to light, so these people in charge of corporations are like, I'll take my chances."
CarolineI am confident there's lots of examples of things not coming to light, but the price is not worth it, And I think it, does eventually come to light, a lot of things do eventually. Now, hopefully you're, you'll be dead and gone, and you won't have to deal with the consequences, but you might, and your children might, and your children's children might. I don't know. If you're a sociopath, you don't care. um
Annethat in "Succession" towards the end of that show as well, there's like a, history of sexual harassment and stuff that they're trying to cover up
CarolineYeah.
Annecome out eventually, yeah
CarolineAnyway
AnneAll right. palate cleanser. What's made you happy or brought a bit of joy besides Andrew Tate and his brother being in prison?
Carolineso I decided to watch The Comeback, I started season one, and I wasn't that into it, but then I decided to just go ahead and watch season three because the, the seasons are really spread apart by a lot, like decades. or a decade, I think, each, Anyway, I was, like, thinking to myself, remember when we were growing up, we would just, like, pick up shows whenever we saw them because you couldn't s- you know, like, watch all of it. So I was like, "I could enjoy this without..." And I did. I really enjoyed season three. I thought it was a very interesting, and in my mind, not being part of Hollywood, a nice balance of how to handle AI, infiltrating that industry and everything like that, and also just a lovely story about a good person,
AnneOkay. I hadn't heard of it. I'll have to look into what you're talking
CarolineIt's with Lisa Goudreau
AnneOh, yeah, I think I've seen an ad for that now that you say it, yeah All right, homework. I thought about The Substance, Misery, or the Autopsy of Jane Doe for kind of like doctory being in the care of someone But in the end, I'm going to go with something that we just both watched recently. there's a connection because there's a cranky side character doctor, and a character uses drugs to open up his mind like Dr. Duntsch did to come up with his so-called stem cell research. And that show is Widow's Bay it's almost the Emmys, and it has been nominated for 19 nominations. So that's what I wanna cover next
CarolineSounds great.
AnneAnd I'm very excited to say that Liz Sauer, of one of my all-time favorite podcasts, which we covered I think in, like, episode four, Ghosts in the Burbs, has agreed to come on as a guest
CarolineIt's gonna be fun
AnneYeah, we'll have one, person from Massachusetts, one from Connecticut, and one from Rhode Island.
CarolineOoh.
AnneRhode Island
CarolineWell,
Annefight
CarolineI know who's gonna lose that fight.
AnneYou.
CarolineThe debatable member of the group.
Anneand I don't know what you are going to choose after Widow's Bay yet, but after, after that, if you wanna get the book out of the library or start reading, we are going to read Incidents Around the House by Josh Malerman. the trailer for Other Mommy, the movie which is based on it, is horrifying, and it's one of the only books that, literally made me afraid to pee at night. So get ready for Incidents Around the House, which will
CarolineNo, I always have to pee in night, in the night.
Annenot anymore. You'll have to pee your pants.
CarolineMm
AnneAll right. What recommendations do you have?
Carolineas you mentioned, the, like, snapping poetry please reminded me of So I Married an Axe Murderer, which is a great movie that I love, so I wanna recommend that. Also, the football scenes reminded me of Friday Night Lights, which I think we,
AnneThat's on my list
Carolineyeah, recommended before. Christian Slater, I first fell in love with him for Heathers, which was my first, favorite movie, and he was my first crush. I also love True Romance, which my husband introduced me to, which is a great, great Christian Slater movie, and Interview with the Vampire, I think we've mentioned before. lots of great Slater recommendations. Dr. Sassani, I don't think we mentioned him, but he's in Office Space. He's Samir. That's a great movie, so wanted to recommend that. Also, Dench's lawyer is from True Blood, which is a great show.
AnneOh yeah, she's Arlene.
CarolineYeah, I think we re- recommended that when we were talking about vampires, but wanted to recommend it again.
AnneSkarsgård.
CarolineYeah. and then also for Alec Baldwin, Royal Tenenbaums has been, a thing I've fallen asleep watching to, which I can't really do 'cause I can't see anything. I wear contacts. But, his voice is so soothing. but also I really thought the documentary Last Take: Rust and the Story of Halyna was really, really good. TCO also has an episode on it if you don't have time to watch it. but it's a good documentary, and it's interesting to hear about what happened to her and, and obviously really devastating, so.
AnneOkay. if you can access it, I recommend the Wondery podcast that this show is based on. It filled in a ton of gaps for me. As I mentioned earlier, Australia has our own Dr. Death, Jayant Patel, and there is a deep dive podcast called Sick to Death. I didn't listen 'cause it's got 15 episodes, and I didn't have time, but I am interested to see our own version of this story. I listened to a Real Crime Profile episode on this, and then I've mentioned a newish podcast I found. called Scrubs and Secrets, and it's two nurses podcasting about healthcare. they talk about, the emotional weight of being in healthcare, the heaviness of, like, crying in your car after a tough shift. as of when I listened, they only had eight or nine episodes out, so it's always nice to check out a new podcast and support indie podcast creators.
CarolineMm-hmm.
Annelet's see. Christian Slater. I'll add Chappa and Mr. Robot to your Christian Slater IMDb list. The book and the TV show Dopesick for more collateral damage of the for-profit medical system. Misery for being helpless under the care of a bad medical professional. for incompetent doctors, Dr. Spichetti from 30 Rock is one of my favorite
CarolineHmm
Anneand Jack Donaghy's also obviously played by Alec Baldwin in that, so that's two reasons to check out 30 Rock. And if you want competent but imperfect doctors, and you want to feel like you're in good hands with people who are doing the best despite the failures of the system, I've recommended it before, but try watching The Pit, which I may have talked about as much as you talk about Heated Rivalry. And speaking of Heated Rivalry, one of the Russian investors is named Ilya,
Carolineas if I didn't notice that. also,
Annedidn't bring it up.
Carolinesorry. but also actually I, I can't believe I forgot to mention in my recommendations Dr. Death Season Two the show is also really good. it's, probably more related to Deep Blue Sea than this one, but I just enjoyed this one so much, so many people I love in it. Mandy Moore is in Season Two. Anyways, a crazy wild story as well, so wanna recommend that one as well. the s-
Annealso based on a podcast?
CarolineYeah, So Dr. Death the show I think had four seasons. I've only listened to this one and then the one that the Season Two show is based on who, comes up with like 3D-printed body parts or whatever
AnneJeez. Okay.
Carolinesupposedly, and it's total bullshit. And he's like
Annewould, up when you're on
CarolineIt's freaking wild how far he went with this. It's really insane
AnneWell, if you have any recommendations for TV shows, podcasts, books, movies that would go along with this or that you'd like us to cover in the future, please contact us. We are available on Instagram, Facebook, and Threads. You can follow us there. In the meantime, do all the things podcasters ask you to do: like and subscribe, review us on Apple Podcasts Spotify. You can email us at drawntodarknesspod@gmail.com, and most importantly, please tell a like-minded friend who's also drawn to darkness. And if like Shirley Jackson, you delight in what you fear, join us in a week or two at Drawn to Darkness Special shout out to Nancy Ano who painted our cover art. You can find her on Instagram at Nancy ano and to Harry Kidd for our intro and outro music. You can find him on Instagram at Harry J. Kidd and on Spotify.
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