Dallas Neurosurgeon charged with intentionally botching surgeries

When explaining the Freudian ego defense mechanism of sublimation, I often use the example of a person who has a strong instinctual desire to pierce human flesh with sharp metal objects becoming a surgeon instead of a serial killer. Seems like this neurosurgeon's defenses let him down.

Dallas Morning News

"Long before he faced lawsuits and criminal charges, a North Texas neurosurgeon emailed one of his employees.

“I am ready to leave the love and kindness and goodness and patience that I mix with everything else that I am and become a cold blooded killer,” Christopher Duntsch wrote.

To authorities, the chilling Dec. 11, 2011, email points to Duntsch’s mind-set in the months before he “intentionally, knowingly and recklessly” botched spinal surgeries, severely injuring four people and killing one woman, Floella Brown, who died in July 2012.

...

Dallas police said in a search warrant affidavit that he is also under investigation in the botching of at least 10 other patients’ surgeries in Plano and Dallas that occurred from November 2011 through June 2013. Duntsch “knowingly takes actions that place the patients’ lives at risk,” police said, such as causing extreme blood loss by cutting a major vein and then not taking proper steps to correct it."