The True Nature of Dr. Schneider

Gracie and I want to thank you for listening to onlynly Fantasy. We hope you enjoyed listening to the show as much as we enjoyed making it. On behalf of everyone on the team, we're so grateful that you've taken this journey with us Now that you've reached the end of this show, there's another podcast that we think you'd love It's called Dr. Death, the Cowboy Similar to only fantasy, Doror Death examines human behavior and the why behind people's actions with a bit more criminal behavior In this all new season of Doror Death, Laura Bele follows the career of John Schneidder, a doctor who promised relief to patients suffering in Wyoming and Montana. He seemed like the hero they needed But when surgeries go wrong and a strange letter exposes a bitter feud Medical professionals and government officials search for the truth about this cowboy doctor They discover claims of broken bodies, bullying fraud and lawsuits. From Audible, the fifth season of the hit series Doror Death returns with the Cowboy story of a surgeon who took advantage of a broken system and the fight to bring him to justice I'm about to play you the first episode of Dor. Death, The Cowboy Stay tuned Listen to Dr. Death, the cowboy, wherever you get your podcasts or binge all episodes of Dor. Death The Cowboy, A free right now on Audible Start your audible subscription in the Audible app or on Apple podcasts. B It's a chilly Wednesday in December, when Julie Mossbeacker pulls up to the post office in Matitsi, Wyoming We don't get home mail delivery, so we all have to go to the post office Matetsi, Population three hundred give or take, is an outpost on the Grael River in one of those wind whipped Wyoming counties that has more cows than people Just around the corner from the post office stands the cowboy bar. A saloon that served renegades and ranchers for more than a hundred years Butch Cassidy once got arrested as he was leaving there and sent to jail for horse theft Today, you can still find men on bar stools with their cowboy hats pulled low perch next to tourists in sensible shoes on their way to Yellowstone Julie Moss Becker has lived here for almost fifteen years. She's a nurse at a hospital in Cody, about a half hour up the road. On this chilly day, she's sifting through the usual stack of envelopes. There's bills, bills, junk mail, another bill, a few Christmas cards And then something odd falls out A small folded scrap of paper Julie opens it up to find a photo of a man staring back at her He's middle aged with the stunned expression of someone who's just been caught doing something he shouldn't. It's a police mugs shot And then above, in big bold letters, the word alert. Julie scans through the text My name is Rita, and I broke my ankle this summer and this doctor did a terrible job I looked up this doctor and found this recent arrest He's already been investigated for drunkenness when on call at the hospital and has a dozen lawsuits that he lost How can they let someone like this practice Julie stares at the note She knows this man. He's a surgeon at West Park Hospital the same hospital where she works My first thought was whoever did this is full of shed. She throws it in the trash and drives off convinced that someone is playing some kind of childish game. But when she walks into the hospital's nursing station It's the only thing folks are talking about. Everybody was like, did you get one? Did you get one? We were all finding out how widespread this mailing was It wasn't just Julie or the staff at the hospital Thousands of people were getting the letter fourourteen thousand to be exact All morning in town scattered across the Big Horn Basin from Powell to Lovevel to Grable and Shell And now the hospital's phones won't stop ringing People of Northwest Wyoming might be shocked to learn that a doctor's been accused of harming patients drunkenly But it's not the doctor in the photo that residents would need to worry about It was another man An outsider Like so many stories from the Old West, he'd come to town looking for a fresh start And he would leave families devastated searching for answers, trying to comprehend what had gone wrong. And who? He really was Welcrom Audible Originals. I'm Laura Beal and this is the fifth season of Dr. Death Cow boy You probably spent too many hours as a kid watching reruns of TV Westerns Gunsmoke, Alias Smith and Jones, Bananza. I decided I wanted to be a girl with a horse And for a while I was I rode a spotted gray Appalusa named Salty Mama TV cowboys of my childhood were tough, independent Often a little reckless They were usually the good guys, but even the heroes had an edge. Dangerous charm The American frontier always had a mythical aura. It was and remains. A real place Today, many of the folks in these old frontier towns are older A lot of them have made a living with their hands and backs And in their bones, they carry the pain that comes from a lifetime of hard work For relief, they often have to drive long distances across vast open country to find a surgeon to help them. This is the story of a doctor who fashioned himself as a cowboy. He rolled into Wyoming in his dress boots, ready to saddle up and be a hero The legend he left behind was one of broken bodies, lawsuits, bankruptcy and fraud This is episode one. paper trail Over an hour northeast of Metsi, Kathy and Jerry Ewan lived on an old family ranch The nearest town was Shell, a town so small, it doesn't even have a stop lightight He was gorgeous It was a little piece of heaven We had a big deck that faced the mountain Jerry had grown up there. putting out hay every morning for the sheep on his parents' farm and we could see T miles in either direction and all the way to the mountain He and Kathy met when they were children Back in the fifties He was kind of a shy Farm kid. He didn't really have a whole lot of social skills In high school, Jerry worked up the courage to ask Kathy out on a date best friend was dating my friend And John, our friend had to literally twist his arm behind his back and say, call her And so I get from Jerry, you wouldn't Wan to go out Friday, would ya? Their first date was a trip to the movies. They saw the pink Panther Three years later, they were married Jerry flew helicopters in the Vietnam War and later worked as a carpenter. Kathy trained as a nurse and then a physician assistant specializing in rural medicine They have three children By two thousand eight, two years before Julie Mossbecker found the mysterious flyer in her mailbox Kathy and Jerry were in their sixties High school sweethearts still lived busy and active lives. One day they were hiking in the mountains with some friends They'd set up camp, and it was Kathy's turn to cook was kneeling down in front of the fire, cooking when It dawned on me that I'm not sure I can get up Pain was excruciating a sharp burn that radiated across her middle and lower back. I took so much aspirin on that trip that my ears were just ringing She and Jerry decided they would head home early. By the time they reached the ranch, it was clear this wasn't just a strain Whatever it was, the pain wasn't going away Over the coming months, Jerry could see just how badly his wife was suffering Kathy's always been a gardener. She loves to be outside and We had some trees and Kathy liked to plant flowers and it was becoming very painful for her to do that. So Kathy asked her doctor for some advice He told her there was a surgeon who had set up in the area His name, Dr. John Henry Schneider It started a clinic called Northern Rockies Neurospine in two thousand five, specializing in spinal complaints He had a signature look. Cowboy boots even in the operating room For Kathy, he was a convenient choice. Most of the nearest alternatives were all the way across the state line in Billings, Montana I made an appointment there justust based on the fact that he was a new man in the community. And it was kind of supportive on my part Soon, Kathy was sitting in a dim examination room A dark haired man in his late forties came in, wearing dress pants and an open neck shirt. He got straight into it He said, we're going to have to operate paced up and down, studying Kathy's scans He said I could probably put in a little piece of metal about that big and that might be all you need doror Schneidder told Kathy she had degenerative disc disease, common for women with sixty something bones The MRI confirmed that her spine had worn down in places, causing bones in her back to shift and press on the nerves, which led to pain and weakness And so I'm thinking, well, if that's something that's that minor Let's do it because I I gott to get some of my life back want to do stuff still. On a mild September day, Kathy and Jerry set off from the ranch and their old wite Lincoln to Cody's West Park hospital On the long drive, the couple held hands Kathy did her best to reassure Derry. It was all going to be okay I told him I will be back on my feet Well enough for you to go You know, you go camping, you take the grandkids or whatever, and you go. That's no biggie At the hospital, as the nurses tended to Kathy in the prep room, Jerry remembers doctor Schnneyder walking into the room in his surgical scrubs He said that he had all this additional hardware that was set aside that he would use if he found to be necessary. in case we find something that we hadn't planned on. And we need these parts, they'll be there in the operating room question began to form in my mind Why do you have this extra stuff when you've already done the diagnosis It seemed a little odd But I dismissed it With that, Jerry kissed his wife goodbye Kathy was wheeled into the operating room where Dr. Schneidder was waiting He was, you know, all gowned and glouffed And he just said We don't know exactly what we're going to find, but I'm prepared for whatever. And he says, I'll talk to you when you wake up. While Kathy lay unconscious, Dr. Schneider made an incision into the midline of her back. carefully dissected the muscles to reveal Kathy's spine. nce the soft tissue cleared, Dr. Schneyder got to work Using a drill and other tools, he removed parts of Kathy's spine and ligaments He widened the nerve passageways, relieving the pressure He then set about stabilizing Kathy's spine using the hardware he'd set aside He implanted screws and a metal rod Finally, a deep drain was placed at the base of Kathy's spine to collect any excess spinal fluid in the days ahead Kathy opened her eyes in the recovery room Dr. Schneidder was standing over her He said that everything went well It was a bit more extensive than he anticipated, but everything had been cared for Everything was okay They're going to take you up onto the floor And you'll be here a couple days Kathy dozed in a private room for a few hours And then at about three AM, She suddenly woke up with a jolt And I was ringing the bell The pain in Kathy's back now consumed her entire body And I said You guys, I don't know when I had meds last, but now iss the time. I want them please Kathy says the nurse is left to go get her chart But they came back looking apologetic they came in and said Kathy, we're sorry But there's no pain medication written for you And that's when I said, Wellll call him Kathy waited waited she says, the nurses could not get a hold of Dr. Schneidder. All she could do was lie there It wasn't until the morning when Dr. Schneidder surfaced with a prescription for pain meds Later, he arrived with an update on Kathy's condition He was happy with her progress and said she could be discharged the following day When Jerry came to pick Kathy up, he was shown the derrain that had been implanted at the base of Kathy's backbone It would be Jerry's job to drain the device of fluid which he collected in a small blue cup Back at the ranch, Kathy rested in the rocking chair and looked out onto the mountainside Each day, Jerry would help her into the shower and empty the drain He did his best to keep it clean and sterile As instructed, Kathy expected the drainage to gradually stop But as each day passed, the clear fluid kept flowing A couple of days back home and four days after the surgery Kathy started to worry As a physician assistant, she could tell that something wasn't right. I kept telling him, you don't leave a drain in more than four days Jerry kept reassuring her. he said I just relax. it's okay You know, just relax, go sit in the rocking chair I remember calling over to the hospital and telling Dr. Schneiderss that I was still draining and that I thought it was time for those drains to be pulled and being tools We don't have time today Dr. Snyder is very busy and we're all really busy. I kept saying, these are supposed to come out. These have to come out And then I started really getting fuzzy headed And I knew I was losing periods of time Kathy could feel herself slipping. And yet, it seemed like no one was listening to her Jerry was no doctor. And he was following the only instructions he says he was given Keep clearing the drain until its stopped didnn't stop told him I'm getting sicker, honey. I'm getting sicker We have to do something Kathy was becoming increasingly concerned about just what was coming out of the drain spinal fluid looked different I was getting Crey by then and that That unnerved me. While Kathy panicked, Jerry, determined to do his best, kept on clearing the drain and he kept Dumping that out He didn't have any medical training, really A week went by, and the milky discharge just kept coming Until one day I woke up one morning and took my temperature and it was over one hundred four I said, let's go out and see Dusty. I don't care what we're doing. We gott to do something Dusty was their family doctor Jerry helped Kathy into the car, and they drove over to see him He said this isn't right. This drain is still here I remember him asking me, what did they tell you to do with this Jerry did his best to explain that he'd done everything he was told But it was all no use. Jerry didn't know why Kathy's condition had deteriorated so badly He was very concerned And his orders were I was to take her immediately to the hospital in Ki Jerry raced back home to get some clothes for Kathy. He had no idea how long she might be in the hospital. Lake. the bag floor and Cassie was convinced at that point that she was going to die And we actually had to stop on the way out the door So she can show me the dress that she would be buried in Kathy and Jerry were preparing themselves for the worst. They headed for the hospital praying she would make it out alive Kathy and Jerry Ewen arrived at West Park Hospital They've been dealing with complications since her surgery with Dr. Schneidder The hospital saw her right away They told her it was a severe infection, a rare and life threatening combination of meningitis and encephalitis. Soon She was back in the operating room with Dr. Stidder. Starter reopened the wound. He scraped and cleaned it with three liters of antibiotic Kathy was sent to the ICU to recover, hooked up to an IV with a cocktail of still more antibiotics. For three days, Jerry sat by his wife's side He held her hand and spoke softly to her as she drifted in and out of consciousness She was definitely not in her head. you know, she wasn't in her right mind because she imagined that there were flowers on the wall and she was reaching out to pick them I just sat by her and She held her hand and said it's going to be okay. Th you're gonna be fine. We're going to get through this I've been through a lot of things in my life. I spent a year in Vietnam as a met aabac helicopter pilot and I saw people die every day. people wounded in the worst possible way And It was hard to have that experience. and I think this is right up there with those things. Aszy sat by her bed, Jerry prayed that she would make it through I had faith, you know, We're people of faith And Persally able to put this in the Lord's hands and say, okay The kind of bacteria Kathy had kills up to one in four people who get it Jerry by her side Kathy's immune system fought until she started to come around as she slowly regained her faculties She started to notice the doctors and nurses who cared for her making curious comments The hospitalist would come in and look at my back and he would say, Well, I think you're very lucky to be alive And I said, yeah, I think so too. I'm You know, this is a miracle And he said, I'm sorry that you had to go through any of this and He looked at Jery like This was uncalled for Before long, she was moved out of the ICU and into a regular hospital room Then, Jerry and Kathy heard someone approaching her room Dr. Schneidder had come to check on his patient. He came just as far as the door And he stood at the door And he said, Well, it looks like you're doing fine. And I said I'm getting better He said that he gets one or two infections a year, and it was her misfortune to be one of them From a chair in the corner of the room, Jerry eyed Dr. Schneider warily seed of doubt was in his mind He was questioning not just the infection, but all that extra hardware Dr. Schneider had set aside and put into Kathy's back What was it you saw or you found after you started the operation that you didn't find on your diagnostics He wouldn't answer me Everybody said to Kathy, I don't think your husband trusts me I thought, Well, hell no, I don't trust you Look at what happened. For his part, Dr. Schneidder recorded his perspective on Kathy's condition and dictated medical notes In Dr. Schneyder's view, Kathy's back surgery was, quote, extremely effective. He says that until she develop meningitis, she'd been doing extxtremely well The surgery, as he saw it, was Successful After seven days in the hospital, Kathy finally went home The infection was under control. But she was still in pain When she asked Dr. Schneidder, he told her not to worry. It would get better with time. He said your surgery was pretty extensive, so you do have pain, but it will go away. But it never did I never got to the point. in my recovery where I was out of pain, not for one single day, not for one hour It destroyed our life as we knew it So, after two years of daily struggle She finally decided to get a second opinion. She said she went to a doctor in Billings, Montana She showed him where Snyder had operated He looked at my back. and He was very at how scarred up I was It's a huge scar And he said, we need to get some pictures but he said this is pretty extensive when he got the MRI and the x rays He had this Imost dazzled look on his face and said, Well, there's a lot of hardware in you. But some of it's not attached to anything Kathy sat rooted to her chair in shock Dr. Schneyder had insisted her pain was just an unavoidable hurdle on the long road to recovery. He said, I I think We need to take out all of that. stuff that's floating around in your bath. Once her second operation was over, Kathy was relieved to discover that the pain she'd been suffering had finally subsided The surgeon sat her down to tell her what he'd found He brought this bag of the titanium rods Um, all those screws the crossbars everythingvery that had been put into my back He said Your back has been cut to ribbons U screws. The screws that were floating around there. have just ripped up your nerves and those titanium rods have been poking you because they're loose I was angry, I was angry what it did to my family. and I realized that all of this time I was being patient, waiting for the healing with all that stuff And it was what was causing me not to heal It was more than enough to make her furious All that time should lastost We did hear from Dr. Schneidder when we reached out to him about Kathy's case Well, he wouldn't speak with us directly. His lawyer told us that The series appears to focus disproportionately on a handful of negative outcomes and patient complaints, while disregarding the thousands of successful cases and positive testimonials from colleagues and patients The series must acknowledge the inherent risks of neurosurgery and the fact that adverse outcomes do not in themselves constitute malpractice or unethical conduct. dry December day back when Kathy had been recovering from her infection Jerry was driving home in his truck When you check the mailbox Shuffles truly. And oh my gosh What is this? A small piece of paper folded down the middle with a picture of a man's mugs shot My name is Rita, and I broke my ankle this summer and this doctor did a terrible job How can they let someone like this practice? Jerry jumped in the car and went straight home to show Kathy because he knew exactly who the doctor in the mugshot was And so did Kathy It wasn't Dr. Schneyder in the photograph But it would eventually reveal to Kathy and Jerry the links that Schneidder could go to when someone questioned his decisions It really disturbed me onn so many levels What have you done? That strange flyer was in mailboxes all over the county that morning Word spread quickly about the possibility of a dangerous doctor in the area And soon, someone at the local newspaper was asking questions This wasn't a flyer that just went to one person. So it was obviously newsworthy. We were getting quite a few people that are just like, what is this? Is it real? Is it legitimate? DJ Baker is a classic old school local reporter. with wire rimmed glasses and a stubble beard He knew his story when he saw it We need to figure out, is this true? Is any of it true? Which parts of it are true CJ had heard of the doctor at the center of the controversy, the one in the mugs shot He was an orthopedic surgeon named Dr. Jimmy Biles Biles was from Texas. He was tall and burly with swept back sandy hair. Just like Dr. Schneidder, he often wore cowboy boots Texas, you know And it seemed, Dr. Biles had recently, just that past October, been arrested for a DUI That was right around the time that our shheriff's offvice had started putting booking photos online. and so I recognized it as legitimate booking photo And then list is an arrest date of october seventeenth, twenty ten And then list charges of actual physical control with the blood alcohol level overzo point one eight Lewot act with resisting arrest, illegal possession, controlled substance, felony investigation. The more CJ looked over the information, the more he questioned it The mugshot of Dr. Biles was real, yes. But the information underneath it and the laundry list of crimes seemed pretty implausible For example, it listed is alleged blood alcohol level which is not information that is ever put on the shheriff's office site And then there was the charge itself It said that he was charged with led act with resisting arrest CJ had covered the courts for a couple years and never heard of that charge called up a prosecutor to double check. Am I out of my mind or is there no such thing as leot act with a resistant arrest? And it was like, yeah, that's not a thing under Wyoming law. No one could ever be charged with What's listed there CJ couldn't help but wonder what else on the flyer was made up the UN N Dr. Biles very well. He worked at West Park Hospital same hospital as Dr. Schneidder. In fact, Kathy had known Dr. Byes for years. They shared an office together, the same office that she was now driving to And their families went back even further had even paid for her father in law's honeymoon So when Kathy got the letter, she wanted to ask him about it directly People were saying, well, boy, if it comes out in the mail like that, there's truth behind this So then people were starting to call the hospital and say, amm I supposed to keep my appointment with him today or Are we supposed to be concerned Is my care provider a drunk When Kathy had been in the hospital with her infection, Dr. Byiles had come to visit her And he said, I have been so concerned about you Kathy, he I've been here. I've been checking on you As Kathy and Dr. Byiles had talked about her ordeal She noticed an undertone to his gravelly drawl If you knew Dror Bios, you would know his tones are very monotone when he's speaking And you have to listen carefully But I picked up an edge of anger in him which very few people would see I knew he was angry that I had been so sick He started reallyally saying this should not have happened to you There was no doubt He was angry Livid But now it was her old friend who was being accused of being a danger to patients Kathy had to know, wasas any of it true? Within minutes, Kathy pushed open the door of Dr. Jimmy Bal's clinic. He looked up as Kathy put three copies of the flyer down in front of him And I said, wasas this a joke? I said, if it is, it's not funny dor. Byiles read the note in silence I just felt so guilty maybe for being the one that brought him the bad news He stood up and shut the office door He just could not go out and face his patients, knowing that probably some of them had seen that that day. It was like he just went numb when he saw I mean, I wanted to hug him because I knew how this would be ripping him up That story is not that man Not the man I know Not at all Later that evening, Dr. Biles called Kathy The whole thing was still on his mind But I just want to let you know from my mouth. This did not happen. This is not real I don't know where it's coming from Kathy didn't know who sent the letter, but whoever sent it. She felt like it wasn't just some kind of prank CJ Baker had enough to go on for his story, which ran under the headline Baraged It was kind of wild. how many things in the flyer appear to be completely false In the very same edition, Dror Biles in West Park Hospital bought an ad declaring that the accusations in the flyer were quote, simply not true But one mystery remained Who was Rita patient whose name was on the flyer CJ tried to track her down and came up empty Until the day that Dr. Byes identified her in a lawsuit. She was a woman living more than a thousand miles away. in Indiana But that wasn't the only detail that caught CJ's attention Dr. Biles claimed that she hadn't acted alone should been working with someone else a doctor named John Schneider onnce this complaint was filed and the allegations made that this was another medical professional who had been behind this whole disparagement campaign, I guess, whatever you want to call what the flyer was, certainly escalated the news wororth this The allegation that Dr. Schneider had orchestrated the letter campaign hit the headlines Schneidder denied that he had anything to do with it He launched a countersuit Now It would be up to the courts to decide Sitting in her rocker, the one that overlooked the mountains, Kathy Ewen's brow furrowed as she digested the news. I was very puzzled about Why would Dr. Schneidder do that? What was the why of that That drove him to go to such lengths. Who was Dr. Schneyer really Who was he Really Kathy wasn't the only one other patients and their families would ask the same questions Schneidder, of course, had his own response He says he had a highly successful career setting up medical practices in Montana and Wyoming and making what he called significant contributions to the field of neurosurgery And that success, he says it made him quote, a target for professional and personal attacks Years later, in a blog post, he would set down his own version of who he was. This is not his voice, but they are his words I've lived the life of Icarus. As with every hero's journey Greek tradition ends in tragedy I have lived well and laughed at the lawyers beating drums and soliciting my accusers. satisfied that they will never find peace If their ancestors are in heaven or hell, I will find them and torment them as they have tried but failed to torment me John Schneidder liked to write his own myth as a Greek hero the reality about what kind of man he truly was and how far he was willing to go was only beginning to surface coming up this season I'm Dr. Dath It' inexcusable. What he did I consider inexcusable, and I will never, ever forgive him He was just one of the best Very easily top ten percent Very intense, kindind of like the Fth grade teacher that scares the shit out of you Members of the committee, dor. Schnyder never should have been hired to treat our veterans It's not a very long leap to think How far could this go He's hurting people How far is this guy willing to go to hurt us? This has been an audible original I'm your host, Laura Beal Executive producers are Russell Finch and Marshall Lewis Our senior reporter is Zachary Staufer Tom Wright is our senior producer Our associate producer is Mohammed Ahmed Joe Wheeler is the senior story editor Senior deevelopment producer is Rachel B. Doyle Our production managers are Sheree Houston and Sarah Mathis. Our associate director of productdion is Lata Panda Checking by Jacqueline Coletti Sound desesign and mixing are by Nicholas Alexander and Mark Pittam Sound suupervisor is Marcelino Vilipondo Music Supervision by Scott Velosquz for Freezon Sync Production services provided by Novel Executive producer for novel is Max O'Brien Audible subscribers can binge all episodes of Dr. Death, the Cowboy, wherever you get your podcasts. or binge all episodes of Dor. Death The Cowboy, A free right now on Audible Start your Audible subscription in the Audible app or on Apple podcasts.