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So, I ended up becoming a little obsessed with Dr Death: The Undoctored Story after watching the series featuring Joshua Jackson and I am just… absolutely gobsmacked by this entire case.
My friend and I have been researching into the historical roots of the series since we wanted to watch it. I admittedly was super worried that they would romanticise Duntsch because he was being played by Joshua Jackson who isn't a bad looking guy… and I've been incredibly disturbed by how people romanticise Ted Bundy for his alleged attractiveness and the fact that Zac Efron played him. That didn't happen. I actually think Joshua came off as a really ugly person on the inside and out, and he completely transformed into the character. I admittedly don't know his work outside of The Mighty Ducks and some scenes I've seen of Dawson's Creek, so I don't really have a background of being a Joshua Jackson Fan to come from. But he was so good in the role. Alec Baldwin and Christian Slater were also really great. I was a bit concerned about AnnaSophia Robb being a DA since she looks like she's 15, but she was really great in her role, too.
The series was surprisingly very based in the actual facts of what transpired. I was shocked to discover that Duntsch's abusive email to Kimberly was real. He called himself a "stone cold-blooded killer" in writing.
The series also didn't try and come up with a motive for Duntsch outside of his narcissism, hubris, and inability to take any criticism. He blamed everyone else around him and never once blamed himself for his failings. I guess that you don't really need a motive when you have someone whose arrogance is so suffocating. I just really appreciated that they didn't fictionalise his childhood and say "He had a bad childhood" when he didn't. What makes him so terrifying is the fact that, on paper, he looks like a man who had a normal, loving upbringing.
I did find that the series romanticised Kimberly a bit and made her very empathetic and emotional when… I felt the documentary's snippets of her court testimony didn't show much emotion at all from her. I didn't get a sense of her personality or the fact that she caught on that Duntsch was guilty of malpractice.
I did prefer the take on Wendy. I felt really sad for her in the documentary because Duntsch really treated her like absolute shit. His narcissism made him an abusive man in the O.R. and in his personal life.
It was super hard for me to get through the series because of how it went back and forth between the present and the past (and I was admittedly confused at times). It also didn't help me to know that it was a real life story. I was deeply disturbed and stressed out while watching it, but I kept Googling everyone as I watched and the horror I felt intensified. I think if you want to watch the dramatised series, you need to have an understanding of the events and facts that happened in this case. It makes the watch all the more terrifying. (It also helps to know the general gist of each patient's case because they did change the names of some of the victims.)
But the documentary was just so fucking sad. The patients received justice when he was sentenced to a life sentence. Apparently it took experts to be on the stand and outlining all of his failures for Duntsch to finally realise he was a horrible surgeon. Not the first death. Not the first paralysis. It took people who were better than him telling him he was a shit surgeon for him to realise he was not a good surgeon at all.
I got the impression from the documentary that Duntsch's defense team believed in his guilt. They did try and excuse his ineffectiveness based on his training, which isn't necessarily a big leap in logic. He was meant to operate 1,000 cases before he even left medical school (or his residency?) and only operated on 100 neurosurgery cases. It starts at the beginning, and I think that the fact he was trying to make money in a research company really, really planted the seeds for what was to come. People saw dollar signs. No one saw the future patients who would either lose their lives or experience permanent chronic pain.
I think the one operation that really gets me is the fact that he couldn't even place screws in the right place and that six people in the O.R. were telling him that he was doing it wrong. He cut out a piece of a man's oesophagus because he thought it was a tumor. He severed spinal cords. He severed vocal cords. He thought that he could operate by touch rather than sight in someone's spine where it was overflowing with blood. My basis for anything medical comes from Grey's Anatomy and I kept telling my friend while I was watching this that Derek Shepherd would never do this. (Obviously he is not a real person and that show is dramatised as fuck, but I do know that they have surgeons provide assistance and guidance on how to hold instruments and on cases, so it is based in some fact before being dramatised. PLUS DEREK WOULD NEVER!)
I think the story I found the most saddening was Jerry Summers. He was Duntsch's best friend and he believed in his friend even after he was operated on and left a quadriplegic. I think what made his entire story so sad was the fact that he needed his friend post-operation and his friend was nowhere to be found. He had been promised by Duntsch "I'll take care of you after" and he wasn't there at all. And still, Jerry continued to think the best of him. Watching his interviews in the documentary was so heartbreaking. Duntsch didn't deserve a friend like him.
I'm not a fan of watching documentaries as I like to escape when I watch my television, but this was just too interesting of a situation to ignore. I would highly recommend watching the documentary series. If you can stomach watching a tragic, traumatising series of events be serialised, then watch the show.
This is a good article to read that details a lot of what transpired.
My friend and I have been researching into the historical roots of the series since we wanted to watch it. I admittedly was super worried that they would romanticise Duntsch because he was being played by Joshua Jackson who isn't a bad looking guy… and I've been incredibly disturbed by how people romanticise Ted Bundy for his alleged attractiveness and the fact that Zac Efron played him. That didn't happen. I actually think Joshua came off as a really ugly person on the inside and out, and he completely transformed into the character. I admittedly don't know his work outside of The Mighty Ducks and some scenes I've seen of Dawson's Creek, so I don't really have a background of being a Joshua Jackson Fan to come from. But he was so good in the role. Alec Baldwin and Christian Slater were also really great. I was a bit concerned about AnnaSophia Robb being a DA since she looks like she's 15, but she was really great in her role, too.
The series was surprisingly very based in the actual facts of what transpired. I was shocked to discover that Duntsch's abusive email to Kimberly was real. He called himself a "stone cold-blooded killer" in writing.
The series also didn't try and come up with a motive for Duntsch outside of his narcissism, hubris, and inability to take any criticism. He blamed everyone else around him and never once blamed himself for his failings. I guess that you don't really need a motive when you have someone whose arrogance is so suffocating. I just really appreciated that they didn't fictionalise his childhood and say "He had a bad childhood" when he didn't. What makes him so terrifying is the fact that, on paper, he looks like a man who had a normal, loving upbringing.
I did find that the series romanticised Kimberly a bit and made her very empathetic and emotional when… I felt the documentary's snippets of her court testimony didn't show much emotion at all from her. I didn't get a sense of her personality or the fact that she caught on that Duntsch was guilty of malpractice.
I did prefer the take on Wendy. I felt really sad for her in the documentary because Duntsch really treated her like absolute shit. His narcissism made him an abusive man in the O.R. and in his personal life.
It was super hard for me to get through the series because of how it went back and forth between the present and the past (and I was admittedly confused at times). It also didn't help me to know that it was a real life story. I was deeply disturbed and stressed out while watching it, but I kept Googling everyone as I watched and the horror I felt intensified. I think if you want to watch the dramatised series, you need to have an understanding of the events and facts that happened in this case. It makes the watch all the more terrifying. (It also helps to know the general gist of each patient's case because they did change the names of some of the victims.)
But the documentary was just so fucking sad. The patients received justice when he was sentenced to a life sentence. Apparently it took experts to be on the stand and outlining all of his failures for Duntsch to finally realise he was a horrible surgeon. Not the first death. Not the first paralysis. It took people who were better than him telling him he was a shit surgeon for him to realise he was not a good surgeon at all.
I got the impression from the documentary that Duntsch's defense team believed in his guilt. They did try and excuse his ineffectiveness based on his training, which isn't necessarily a big leap in logic. He was meant to operate 1,000 cases before he even left medical school (or his residency?) and only operated on 100 neurosurgery cases. It starts at the beginning, and I think that the fact he was trying to make money in a research company really, really planted the seeds for what was to come. People saw dollar signs. No one saw the future patients who would either lose their lives or experience permanent chronic pain.
I think the one operation that really gets me is the fact that he couldn't even place screws in the right place and that six people in the O.R. were telling him that he was doing it wrong. He cut out a piece of a man's oesophagus because he thought it was a tumor. He severed spinal cords. He severed vocal cords. He thought that he could operate by touch rather than sight in someone's spine where it was overflowing with blood. My basis for anything medical comes from Grey's Anatomy and I kept telling my friend while I was watching this that Derek Shepherd would never do this. (Obviously he is not a real person and that show is dramatised as fuck, but I do know that they have surgeons provide assistance and guidance on how to hold instruments and on cases, so it is based in some fact before being dramatised. PLUS DEREK WOULD NEVER!)
I think the story I found the most saddening was Jerry Summers. He was Duntsch's best friend and he believed in his friend even after he was operated on and left a quadriplegic. I think what made his entire story so sad was the fact that he needed his friend post-operation and his friend was nowhere to be found. He had been promised by Duntsch "I'll take care of you after" and he wasn't there at all. And still, Jerry continued to think the best of him. Watching his interviews in the documentary was so heartbreaking. Duntsch didn't deserve a friend like him.
I'm not a fan of watching documentaries as I like to escape when I watch my television, but this was just too interesting of a situation to ignore. I would highly recommend watching the documentary series. If you can stomach watching a tragic, traumatising series of events be serialised, then watch the show.
This is a good article to read that details a lot of what transpired.