Between 2011 and 2013, neurosurgeon Christopher Duntsch operated on 38 patients in Dallas hospitals. Only five came out unharmed. Two died. Thirty-three were left mutilated, paralyzed, or in permanent pain.
What divides people is not only what Duntsch did, but what the hospitals did when they discovered it: they quietly fired him and let him keep operating. For some, that decision makes them direct accomplices in each subsequent victim. For others, the system did not have clear legal tools to act faster without exposing itself to retaliation.
In 2017, Duntsch was sentenced to life in prison, the first surgeon in United States history imprisoned for acts committed in the operating room. But is that enough when those who looked the other way never faced any consequences?