This Podcast About A Doctor Misdiagnosing Cancer Patients Is Your Next True Crime Fix
If you feel like you’ve already listened to practically every true crime podcast that exists (guilty!), you’re not alone. Once you’ve done all the big ones, like Serial, Dirty John, and The Teacher’s Pet, it can be tough finding something equally enthralling to sink your teeth into. Well, fear not! Your next true crime fix is here.
Following its successful first season, Wondery’s Dr. Death is back and it’s just as disturbing as the 2018 season. While season 1 recounted the grisly tale of Texas surgeon Christopher Duntsch, Season 2 follows the rise and fall of Farid Fata, an oncologist who built a medical empire by defrauding patients.
Dr. Fata treated thousands of patients by prescribing rounds of chemotherapy but– plot twist — many of them didn’t have cancer. For the ones who did have cancer, he either prescribed low doses of medicine to keep them sick for longer, or kept patients on toxic levels of chemotherapy when they were unlikely to survive.
In each episode, host Laura Beil interviews people who either worked with Dr. Fata, were treated by him, or in the most devastating cases, had loved ones who died while under his care.
After he was arrested in 2013, the courts found that Dr. Fata made more than $17 million in fraudulent billing costs, and was sentenced to 45 years in prison in 2014. It’s a deeply upsetting but fascinating podcast, and with four of six episodes already live, there’s plenty of bingeing to do.