THE BAD DOCTOR

When patients kept nearly dying at asurgical center in Dallas, nobody thought it might be an inside job. Here’s howateam of medical investigators uncovered the disturbing truth— and how you can protect yourself from quacks, hacks, and downright dangerous docs.

- BRENT CRANE

On August 24, 2022, an 18-year-old named Jack Adlerstein checked into the Baylor Scott & White North Dallas Surgicare center. He had come in to have an injury repaired—a deviated septum—following a dirt-bike accident. It's a common procedure. While he was under anesthesia, the teen's blood pressure soared to 200/150, a dangerously high figure. The local news reported the dramatic details: Fluid filled his lungs and then his heart stopped. He was transferred to an ICU. Hours later, he awoke without the ability to speak or move, and doctors worried about lasting neurological damage. During all of this, Ashley Burks, the facility administrator, called the surgery center's governing chair. "It's happening again," she said.

The North Dallas Surgicare center occupies a handsome, modernist building near the North Central Expressway. It is partly owned by physicians, which means that trained medical professionals rather than corporate bureaucrats decide how it operates. (Proponents of this model say it can result in better care.) The rest belongs to Baylor Scott & White, a health-care conglomerate that manages 48 hospitals and more than 900 patient-care sites in Texas. It employs some 7,300 doctors and 49,000 health-care workers across the state, making it the largest not-for-profit health-care entity there and one of the biggest in the country.