Streaming on the Peacock Channel

One of the few Good Guys at the Swedish Hospital

The Backward Step

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John Fraim

After covid and all the questions and problems with the medical industry, many have questions and concerns about medicine today. A story based on medicine is ready. There are other excellent series on the topic of medicine today. One of the best is Dr. Death (Dr. Christopher Duntsch) streaming on the Peacock Channel. The drama is made from a true documentary about a legendary doctor who had developed a new type of implant for patients that had little hope of survival. 

Of course, one is sometimes willing to sign away all rights to sue a doctor who performs some “Hail Mary” procedure when all others have failed. In other words, to even be a doctor in the area one is greatly protected by the document the patient has signed before the procedure. 

This was the situation with Dr. Death, the story of a doctor who found a niche in the lucrative area of last hope medicine for patients dying from cancer who had tried almost everything else. An area that is less supervised by medical police than other areas. 

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Dr. Death is an interesting mixture of several stories going on at the same time throughout the series. The is the relationship of Dr. Death and Benita, a journalist who is making a documentary film on the famous doctor. She eventually falls in love with him and completed her documentary which sing the praises of the doctor, making him even more famous. 

Benita is a widow as her husband has died leaving her with a daughter to raise. Her daughter has been in a depression since her father died but when Dr. Death starts dating her mother, she comes to really like him and becomes happy again. 

There are also the colleagues of Dr. Death. One is a Swedish research doctor and the other an American surgeon who are working at the same famous clinic in Stockholm performing the operations of Dr. Death. Both come to suspect Dr. Death. The tests with rats that the Swedish research doctor is performing are ending up killing all the rats. Using the same procedure that Dr. Death has sold people on paying great amounts of money for. As a last hope.

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There are the stories of the patients that come to be cured by Dr. Death. A little girl from a town in Japan who dies not long after the procedure Dr. Death performs. Then, there is the young black professional who comes for treatment and then the little girl from Turkey. We follow their stories in all of this. They are painful stories to follow as their health after their initial operation by Dr. Death, their condition has worsened. But, even so, these examples of the operation of the great doctor are paraded up front to investors and the press as examples of the miracle that Dr. Death is creating for these people. Yet he is not contributing to the quality of life of any of his patients, making things worse for them than before seeing Dr. Death.

There is the representative symbol of the institutional power of hospitals and research centers for new medical procedures. A typical European bureaucrat he seems to me. Really, the hospital CEO represents the institutional power of medicine in general to defend its interests. Here, the head of the hospital and research center built for Dr. Death in Stockholm, Sweden. And covering up some of the botched procedures done at the hospital. 

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A general theme of the series if the fear of going after power and the retaliations from this action. The greatest fear of going after the power is in one’s profession. Here, a professional TV journalist (from outside the profession) explores the life of Dr. Death for a documentary they are making. (Interestingly, a documentary on this true case has already been made).

Here, a world-renown surgeon in a new method of an implant that promises to save lives lost of all hope. Many memories of people like Dr. Death come to mind when I reflect on things. In effect, I’ve got friends who were candidates for making an appointment with Dr. Death. 

The dynamics between Dr. Death and his new assistant versus the young surgeon and Swedish research doctor. Once a team working together, they now both realize that his sham must be exposed to the world. But Dr. Death strikes at the young surgeon for permitting her to go downhill since his first operation. It was the operation that caused all her problems. We witness the deterioration of a beautiful little girl since her first operation through over a hundred operations. Dr. Death has left Sweden for Russian and returns to testify at the hospital in Sweden that he performed a perfect operation and the young surgeon made things much worse. 

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So many thoughts set in motion by this brilliant series. Not only a form of medical thriller that Michael Crichton could have written. But something that expresses a lot of the consumer frustrations with the medical industry today. Of course, there are lobbies spending millions each year just to see that stories like this never get beyond some individual blog. Like here.

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Notes on What I’d Like to See in a Medical Story …

The protection of an industry

The patients who came to Dr. Death with hope

Prestigious medical journals of an industry

The researcher covering up things

The journalist exploring this who falls in love with her film hero

The film crew of the journalist

The pharmaceutical company

The advertising firm

Politicians on the edge

Politicians already bought in full

A new distrust after Covid

The politics of medicine

A new drug

A legendary doctor

Someone with supernatural healing powers

The discovery of a section of the Bible never seen before  

The search for the private essence of a person behind the public facades

The Mayo Clinic and our family

That famous doctor and first assistant of Doctor Charlie Mayo, Dr. Hugh Butt. Our close family friend.