The Cowboy | Screwed Over | S5-E3

Summary

Dr. Death: The Cowboy – "Screwed Over" (S5-E3)

Release Date: June 11, 2026
Host: Laura Beale (for Audible Originals)

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Episode Overview

Episode 3, “Screwed Over,” continues the investigation into Dr. John Schneider, a surgeon with a cowboy persona whose confidence and outsized ego hid a trail of failed surgeries, bullying, and fear in rural Montana and Wyoming. Through the heart-wrenching story of Christy Maccachern and her mother Mary Wilkinson, the episode exposes both the human cost of Schneider's alleged malpractice and the shocking dysfunction in the oversight of such physicians. The episode scrutinizes how a medical system laced with small-town politics, rivalries, and intimidation allowed a pattern of harm to persist unchecked.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Schneider’s Cowboy Persona and Early Red Flags

• Dr. Schneider, an outsider in appearance and attitude, is described as arrogant from the outset.
• Nurse Julie Mossbacker’s first encounter with him is emblematic: he takes her chair and refuses to budge, showing clear signs of entitlement and disregard for staff boundaries.

  “He was not only arrogant, but godlike. He wanted his ego stroked.” — Julie Mossbacker (03:22)

2. The Patient Story: Mary Wilkinson’s Ordeal

• Mary’s Background: Beloved nurse and community figure, suffers recurring, intensifying back pain after multiple surgeries.
• Initial Trust: Schneider wins Mary and her family's trust by being attentive, “making her feel special” ([06:22]).
• Surgeries Fail: Despite two spinal fusions, Mary’s pain increases. Schneider insists everything is “perfect,” attributing symptoms to unavoidable scar tissue ([08:20]).

  “I did a great job... I don’t know what you want me to do.”—Dr. Schneider (as recalled by Christy [08:20])

• Blunt Prognosis: Schneider warns further surgery “will paralyze her," leaving the family feeling hopeless ([09:17]).

3. Systemic Stonewalling and Desperation

• After failed surgeries, Christy struggles to find another doctor willing to see her mother – most refuse outright if they hear Schneider’s name ([11:58]).
• The isolation leads to despair for Mary, culminating in a suicide threat due to uncontrolled pain ([10:55]).

4. Finding Dr. Nowadsky: A Turning Point

• Dr. Robert Nowadsky, in Wyoming, reviews Mary’s cases and finds none of Schneider's fusions had healed ([14:08]):

  “None of the hardware has healed. None of it. ...So my mom was walking around with a broken back all this time? He said, yeah.”—Christy Maccachern, paraphrasing Dr. Nowadsky ([14:20])

• Dr. Nowadsky offers a third surgery, counsels patience, honesty, and gives Christy agency in deciding next steps ([15:33]).

5. Harassment and Anonymous Letters

• After committing to Nowadsky’s care, Christy receives an anonymous, intimidating letter warning against him, eerily similar to one sent to another ex-Schneider patient. Both are designed to undermine trust and suggest Nowadsky is under investigation for fraud ([20:26], [22:09]).

  “Who in their right mind sends letters when you’re a neurosurgeon out to patients like that? That’s just so weird.” — Christy Maccachern ([22:38])

6. Professional Retaliation and Medical Review

• Nowadsky reveals his past experience reviewing Schneider’s cases after a hospital’s infection control committee flagged a high rate of post-op infections ([23:04]).
• He describes a pattern: failed fusions, misplaced screws, surgery on the wrong side, and retaliation (including lawsuits for defamation) against any patient or doctor who questions Schneider ([23:31], [24:05]).

7. Systemic Failures in Accountability

• Nowadsky documents 17 redone Schneider surgeries and submits to the Wyoming Board of Medicine ([29:02]). Despite clear evidence, no action is taken.

  “I finally put all those cases together, and I talked to the Wyoming Board of Medicine.” — Dr. Robert Nowadsky ([29:02])

8. Intimidation Tactics & Escalation

• Schneider’s harassment escalates: he creates a blog where he makes veiled threats referencing “friends from gangland LA days” and allegedly threatens local doctors—Nowadsky takes this seriously, even arming himself for self-protection ([39:06]).

  “After your podcast, I will probably start carrying a gun, meaning I wouldn’t be surprised if Schneider decided to come pay me a visit.” — Dr. Nowadsky ([39:06])

9. Truth, Relief, and Unsettling Endings

• Nowadsky’s surgery is successful; Mary awakens virtually pain-free for the first time in years ([26:15]).

  “She woke up and looked at me and said, the pain’s gone. It’s all gone.” — Christy Maccachern ([26:15])

• Despite the success, intimidation continues: Christy is accused of violence at Schneider’s office when claiming her mom’s medical records, though she provides proof she did nothing wrong ([33:20]).

10. Entrenched Denials and Ongoing Risk

• Schneider denies wrongdoing, claims to be the victim of a vendetta, and paints Nowadsky as a “malicious” rival ([36:09]), despite the Board of Medicine clearing Nowadsky and affirming his reputation.
• Even as complaints and credible evidence mount, the system fails to intervene, and Schneider continues practicing unchecked.

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Notable Quotes & Moments with Timestamps

• “He was not only arrogant, but godlike. He wanted his ego stroked.”
  — Julie Mossbacker, nurse, on first impressions of Dr. Schneider. ([03:22])

• “He made promises of making her feel better, and this was nothing. He was going to fix her.”
  — Christy Maccachern, recalling Dr. Schneider’s original assurances. ([07:33])

• “If she ever has surgery, it will paralyze her. Don’t trust anybody that says they’re going to be able to fix her, because it’s not going to happen.”
  — Dr. Schneider’s warning to Christy and Mary ([09:17])

• “We went in to see her primary care doctor... Schneider wrote back and said, no, there’s nothing I can do for her. He wanted nothing more to do with her.”
  — Christy describing Schneider cutting off care ([10:24])

• “He’s put the screw in the wrong place. Missing a pedicle by this much just... It shouldn’t happen.”
  — Dr. Nowadsky, on reviewing Schneider’s surgery outcomes ([24:05])

• “I finally put all those cases together, and I talked to the Wyoming Board of Medicine.”
  — Dr. Nowadsky ([29:02])

• “After your podcast, I will probably start carrying a gun, meaning I wouldn’t be surprised if Schneider decided to come pay me a visit.”
  — Dr. Nowadsky, on Schneider’s threats ([39:06])

• “She woke up and looked at me and said, the pain’s gone. It’s all gone.”
  — Christy, on her mother's relief post-surgery ([26:15])

• “In the end, the lawsuit with Dr. Schneider was settled, like so many others, with no admission of wrongdoing.”
  — Narrator ([36:09])

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Timeline and Segment Highlights

• [00:00–03:40]: Introduction of Dr. Schneider’s arrogance and persona, as seen by staff.
• [05:51–10:08]: Christy and Mary’s first encounters and surgeries with Schneider; hope turns to pain and despair.
• [10:55–12:41]: Systemic shutout as no doctors will see Mary.
• [13:18–15:43]: Dr. Nowadsky steps in, reveals extent of failed surgeries.
• [16:11–18:08]: Christy’s confrontation with Schneider, subsequent dismissive and warning letters.
• [20:26–22:49]: Anonymous letters attempt to further intimidate and confuse patients.
• [23:04–27:40]: Nowadsky’s reviews expose a troubling pattern; professional and systemic reluctance to intervene.
• [29:02–29:34]: 17 patient redo cases submitted to the Board—no action taken.
• [34:09–36:09]: Dr. Schneider’s official denials, settlements without admission, allegations against Nowadsky.
• [39:06–41:20]: Threats, paranoia, Schneider’s increasing erratic behavior.

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Episode Tone and Takeaways

The narrative is deeply personal and at times harrowing, alternating between clinical detail and the emotional trauma inflicted on patients and families. Laura Beale’s narration is clear, compassionate, and unflinching. The testimony from Christy and Dr. Nowadsky is candid and often raw, underscoring the stakes not only for individual victims but for anyone reliant on a medical system vulnerable to self-interest, intimidation, and inertia.

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Conclusion

“Screwed Over” is a chilling examination of how unchecked ego, financial incentives, and professional reluctance to “call out” wrongdoing can leave vulnerable patients at risk for years—even when the warning signs are impossible to ignore. The episode uses detailed, credible storytelling to challenge listeners: who is the system really protecting, and what happens when patients and courageous whistleblowers are left to fend for themselves?

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Next Episode Tease:
A new shocking case emerges—one that authorities cannot ignore, and where the cost of inaction becomes tragically clear.

Transcript

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

Audible subscribers can binge all episodes of Dr. Death the Cowboy early and ad free. Join Audible today by downloading the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts. Please Note this episode contains references to suicide. If you or someone you know needs support, there are links in the show. Notes to Resources. It was nighttime at West Park Hospital in Cody, Wyoming. Julie Mossbacker sat at the nursing station updating a patient's vitals. She pulled an ECG strip from the printer and got up to grab some

[Julie Mossbacker (Nurse)]

paper, and out of the corner of my eye I watched my chair kind of mosey off.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

Now any other nurse might have shrugged their shoulders and grabbed another chair, but not Julie.

[Julie Mossbacker (Nurse)]

I'm kind of territorial on some of my equipment, I'll be quite honest. I'll chase the doctor down to get my pen back.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

The suspect wasn't exactly hiding. A doctor sat nearby, one she hadn't met before, flipping through patient notes.

[Julie Mossbacker (Nurse)]

He was dressed to the nine, like he was going out somewhere.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

He was wearing a swanky leather jacket, a dress shirt, jeans, and on his feet, high end cowboy boots.

[Julie Mossbacker (Nurse)]

Boots that you knew were not just off of the shelf at the Boot Barn. You know, they were either handmade or something.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

Julie stared right at him. If Dr. Schneider noticed, he didn't show it.

[Julie Mossbacker (Nurse)]

Being the ICU nurse that I am, I said, excuse me, why did you take my chair? And he said, well, I needed it. You weren't using it? I said, yes, I was. I just stood up to get a piece of paper and I need it now so I can finish putting my strips on. He says, no, you can use it when I get done. Of course, that made my blood boil.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

Dr. Schneider kept flicking through his notes.

[Julie Mossbacker (Nurse)]

Why don't you use this chair? And I brought him a different chair. It was much lower to the ground, and he said, no, this one's comfortable.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

After a while, Schneider got up and headed down the hall, seemingly oblivious to Julie or what she was saying to herself.

[Julie Mossbacker (Nurse)]

Who the hell did he think he was and what planet did he land from? Those are the cleaned up versions, by the way.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

If Dr. Schneider left a lasting impression on Julie, the same can't be said of her. Via his lawyer. Dr. Schneider told us he does not recall this nurse, but Julie says she remembers because to her, that first meeting was a glimpse of what was to come. Working with Schneider was going to be anything but simple. In fact, the more she saw him around the hospital, the more she became convinced that his personality wasn't just difficult.

[Julie Mossbacker (Nurse)]

You know, and I've worked with a multitude of neurosurgeons through my career. They're all a little quirky. But he was not only arrogant, but godlike. He wanted his ego stroked.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

John Schneider had always been self assured. It was a quality that had once marked him out as a rising star who'd even made the pages of Reader's Digest. But now some of his patients were waking up from surgery and reporting immense pain. They'd filed lawsuits. One of them, Tom Dealing, had died. Still, Dr. Schneider was adamant that he'd done nothing wrong. But once Dr. Schneider left Montana and set up permanently in Wyoming, those allegations followed him like a dust cloud over the border. And as patients and doctors tried to challenge or defy Dr. Schneider, they noticed that strange things began to occur. After all, what happens when you try to convince someone who has supreme confidence in his abilities that he's made a mistake?

[Christy Maccachern (Patient's Daughter)]

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[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

From Audible Originals. I'm Laura Beale and this is the fifth season of Dr. Death the Cowboy. This is episode three Screwed Over. When Christy Maccachern and her mom, Mary Wilkinson, first met Dr. Schneider in Billings, Montana, they really took a shine to him.

[Christy Maccachern (Patient's Daughter)]

My mom loved him. She liked to talk a lot. And when she would go into a doctor's appointment, she would just talk and talk. And you could tell some people are like, oh, we're too busy for this. He made the time. He would sit and have very long conversations with my mom and talk to her and make her feel special, make her feel like she was important to him.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

At the time, Mary was 64 years old. She'd raised Christy and her brother single handedly. She was a nurse at a Long term care home, a job she loved so much. She would also volunteer on weekends organizing hoedowns for the residents.

[Christy Maccachern (Patient's Daughter)]

It became so popular that the news station came out. We would have hundreds of people coming from the town just to come see her. Everybody loved her.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

But in 2006, Mary started experiencing back pain. She'd already had surgery twice before. She ended up in front of Dr. Schneider. Christy says he seemed confident he could help.

[Christy Maccachern (Patient's Daughter)]

He made promises of making her feel better, and this was nothing. He was going to fix her. She was going to get up to dancing again and feeling better.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

But after two operations to fuse Mary's spine together with bolts and screws, she was still no closer to feeling better.

[Christy Maccachern (Patient's Daughter)]

She just kept saying that the pain was getting worse and it would go down her leg. My mom was tough, so I knew something wasn't right.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

So in the summer of 2008, Christy took her mom back for another consultation. As soon as Dr. Schneider walked into the room, Christy felt something was off.

[Christy Maccachern (Patient's Daughter)]

He completely changed. He took the X rays and he slapped them up on the wall and he said, look, the fusion is perfect. Everything has healed perfect. I don't know what's going on. Everything looks great in here. He said, the only thing that's wrong is there's some nerve entrapment from scar tissue that he said he had no control over and he could not operate on that. He didn't scream it, but it was very intense. I don't know what you want me to do. Everything's fine. It's healed, it's perfect. I did a great job. He was very annoyed with us, like we were wasting his time.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

Then Christy says Dr. Schneider said something that stopped her short.

[Christy Maccachern (Patient's Daughter)]

If she ever has surgery, it will paralyze her. So don't take that route. Don't trust anybody that says they're going to be able to fix her, because it's not going to happen.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

Dr. Schneider's words hit Christy hard. The idea that her mom was a lost cause was hard to stomach.

[Christy Maccachern (Patient's Daughter)]

What do you do? You've got a neurosurgeon telling you, basically, your mom's life is going to always be like this, and there's nothing you can do.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

In the months after, she watched as her mom began to unravel.

[Christy Maccachern (Patient's Daughter)]

She was miserable. She was in so much pain, she couldn't stand it.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

Eventually, Dr. Schneider did suggest a new approach. A spinal cord stimulator. It's a device that can help with pain by sending electrical signals down the spinal cord. But it didn't help.

[Christy Maccachern (Patient's Daughter)]

We went in to see her primary care doctor and asked him if he would send a letter to Schneider if there was any possible way that he could see her. And Schneider wrote back and said, no, there's nothing I can do for her. He wanted nothing more to do with her. He would not see her.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

So they struggled on until one day, Christy's phone rang. It was her mom.

[Christy Maccachern (Patient's Daughter)]

She called me up because. She told me that she wanted to drive her car off the rims.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

The rims are a stretch of sheer cliffs overlooking Billings.

[Christy Maccachern (Patient's Daughter)]

She couldn't take the pain. Christy, find me a surgeon. Just paralyzed me. At least I'll be out of pain. And that scared me really bad. That really, really scared me. Not just saying that she didn't want to be alive, but saying she wanted to drive her car off the rims. It was like a plan.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

That was it for Christy. Whatever Dr. Schneider had said, she had to do something. So she left a message with another neurosurgeon's practice in Billings. The answer came back quickly.

[Christy Maccachern (Patient's Daughter)]

They called me back, one of the nurses, and told me that he is not taking any of Dr. Schneider's old patients. There are current lawsuits from Dr. Schneider, and they just can't take that risk.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

It was the first time Christy had ever heard anyone say anything negative about Dr. Schneider.

[Christy Maccachern (Patient's Daughter)]

I really had no clue what was going on. It made no sense to me, to be honest, like, okay, what has he done? They wouldn't tell me.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

In fact, the more Christy searched, she says, it seemed to her like nobody was willing to take on one of Dr. Schneider's patients.

[Christy Maccachern (Patient's Daughter)]

I called a lot of doctors in town. I would say who she had surgery with, what's going on, and I couldn't even get an appointment for her. They wouldn't even look at her x rays or MRIs. They would do nothing. Nothing.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

Christy was running out of options. Maybe Dr. Schneider was right. Nobody could help. But then Christy remembered someone, a doctor she'd once worked with, and she made one last call.

[Christy Maccachern (Patient's Daughter)]

Her nurse told me about Dr. Nowotsky down in Wyoming.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

Christy didn't think twice.

[Christy Maccachern (Patient's Daughter)]

I called Dr. Narotsky up, and I talked to the nurse right away. And she's like, yeah, we've seen a few other patients that Dr. Schneider did surgeries on. She ended up sending me to the office to set an appointment to come down.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

So Kristy and her mom made the long drive down to Casper, Wyoming, where Dr. Noradsky was based. When they were called in, he sat at the edge of the exam table. He was in his 60s, tall, and wiry. And he began to lay it out for them.

[Dr. Robert Nowadsky]

I would go over the films with them and say, here's the problem.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

And then he told them what it meant.

[Christy Maccachern (Patient's Daughter)]

We're going to have to do surgery. We just need to fix the fusions that never healed. None of them healed.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

Christy was speechless, trying to take it all in.

[Christy Maccachern (Patient's Daughter)]

I said, the first surgery from Dr. Schneider. He said, no, none of the hardware has healed. None of it. And I'm picturing it in my head, all these screws and bolts in my mom's back just floating around. And I asked him, I said, so my mom was walking around with a broken back all this time? He said, yeah, none of it's healed. My mom didn't say anything. She was just listening, in shock.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

Dr. Nowadsky was clear that there were no magic fixes. The best he could do was to remove the hardware and fuse her spine for a third time.

[Christy Maccachern (Patient's Daughter)]

My brain was just going in every which direction, like, do we trust this doctor? Does he know what he doing?

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

And there was one question in particular that was weighing on her mind. The thought that Dr. Schneider had planted in her head.

[Christy Maccachern (Patient's Daughter)]

I asked him if this was going to paralyze my mom. I still believed that he was right. Dr. Schneider and anybody that touched her was going to paralyze her. There was nothing to be done.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

Dr. Nowadsky told her that wouldn't happen.

[Christy Maccachern (Patient's Daughter)]

He wasn't pushy at all. He said, think on it. Get back to me. Let me know what you think.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

Christy walked out of Dr. Nowadsky's office, relieved. Finally, she'd found someone willing to take on one of Dr. Schneider's patients. But as she took her mom and her two toddlers back out of the building and into the parking lot, Kristi could feel her emotions rising.

[Christy Maccachern (Patient's Daughter)]

I got the kids and my mom in the truck, and I walked around the parking lot so they wouldn't hear me.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

She pulled out her cell phone and punched in the number for the office of Dr. Schneider.

[Christy Maccachern (Patient's Daughter)]

I asked to speak to him. He wouldn't take the call. So I told the secretary to give him a message for me. I told her I wanted to hear it from Schneider, that he lied to us all these years, that my mom had a broken back, that she was walking around with hardware that's not even connected to her bones. And I wanted to hear it from him, what his thoughts are. Did he know all these years that my mom's fusion didn't heal? That he put her through so much pain and agony? And I remember a few of the people in the parking lot looking at me because I was screaming on the phone demanding him to get on the phone and talk to me and tell me what he thinks of this. She just kept saying, he's too busy, he's with patients, he cannot come to the phone, but I'll be sure to tell him.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

A week later, her mom got a letter. It was from Dr. Schneider. He wrote, I was aghast that your daughter would intimate and accuse myself or my staff of medical error or ignoring your needs. He went on with a warning for her. I am very concerned you chose Dr. Nowadsky for your second opinion and would encourage you to be very, very careful before believing or letting this doctor treat you. I would be happy to sit down with you and your family and review these issues. As she scanned through the words, Christy could only think one thing.

[Christy Maccachern (Patient's Daughter)]

What an asshole. At that point you think he's like he doesn't want any other surgeon to see what he did to my mom inside her back.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

So Christy and her mom did not take up Dr. Schneider's offer of a follow up appointment, nor did she pay any attention to his warnings about Dr. Nowadsky. Instead, she moved ahead with her mom's surgery. But then, not long later, a second letter arrived in the mail with the warning that made her wonder what and who she was really dealing with.

[Christy Maccachern (Patient's Daughter)]

I panicked. Completely panicked.

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[Christy Maccachern (Patient's Daughter)]

We've already been screwed over once by one neurosurgeon. So then when you receive a letter like that, I wanted to cancel it.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

So Christy gave Dr. Nowadsky a call. He listened as she told him about the letter and its claim that he was under investigation.

[Dr. Robert Nowadsky]

To my knowledge, I've never been investigated by any of the medical organizations, societies, boards.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

And then he told her something else.

[Christy Maccachern (Patient's Daughter)]

He said that we weren't the only person getting that letter.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

Another patient of his had received the same note. The letters were identical. The same words, the same computer font that mimicked handwriting. And just like Christy and her mom, this other letter had been sent to a former patient of Dr. Schneider's.

[Christy Maccachern (Patient's Daughter)]

It's very confusing. You're just not sure who to trust.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

The whole thing was so bizarre.

[Christy Maccachern (Patient's Daughter)]

Who in their right mind sends letters when you're a neurosurgeon out to patients like that? That's just so weird.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

To Dr. Nowadsky, the motive seemed clear, because this was not his first rodeo with Dr. Schneider. It all started some years earlier when he says, a small hospital near Cody got in touch.

[Dr. Robert Nowadsky]

The infection control committee was concerned because they were seeing that he was having a lot of infections, and they asked me if I would review those cases for them and give them opinion. You know, was this normal for neurosurgery? Was this abnormal? And so I agreed to do that.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

And so at their request, he dug into Schneider's records. He was deeply troubled by what he found.

[Dr. Robert Nowadsky]

His infection rate was extremely high.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

After Naradsky sent off his report, he thought little of it until patients began to turn up at his door with long and complicated medical histories, all tracing back to this same doctor.

[Dr. Robert Nowadsky]

I would restudy them. MRI scan, myelogram, CT scan, combination of all of those things.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

In some cases, he says, he found spinal fusions that had failed with screws separating from bone, or, in one case, even missing its target entirely.

[Dr. Robert Nowadsky]

He's put the screw in the wrong place. Missing a pedicle by this much just. It shouldn't happen. It just shouldn't happen

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

another time. Nowsky says Schneider had operated on the left side of a patient's spine when it should have been the right. And when the patient complained, Schneider denied he'd done anything wrong and sued the patient for defamation. That patient got an almost identical letter attacking Naradsky, only the signatures were different. Whereas Mary got one that was signed Julie, the other one was signed Doug. So for Nowsky, the pattern felt all too familiar.

[Dr. Robert Nowadsky]

He's aware that I was honest with these patients. He goes after anybody that crosses him in any way, and he's not subtle about it.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

On the night before Mary's operation, Dr. Nowsky called Christy at the hotel where they were staying.

[Christy Maccachern (Patient's Daughter)]

He could tell I was still scared.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

She stepped into the hallway to take the call, not wanting to wake her kids. Gently, he told her that he understood why she was scared and that he would do everything he could to help her mom.

[Dr. Robert Nowadsky]

I wasn't gonna let him get under my skin, and I wasn't gonna change what I was gonna do, which was to take care of the patient and be honest with the patient.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

Christy hung up, feeling better, hoping he was right. The next day, Dr. Nowtsky got to work. Slowly, carefully, he removed the screws and rods that Dr. Schneider had employed in Mary's back. One by one, he placed them onto a surgical tray. He set about refusing Mary's spine, vertebra by vertebra. When it was all over, Christy anxiously went to the recovery room.

[Christy Maccachern (Patient's Daughter)]

My mom's face was all swollen from being on her stomach that long. She woke up and looked at me and said, the pain's gone. It's all gone. I worked at the hospital on a surgical floor. I've never heard anybody say that. I started crying because I hadn't heard my mom say she was out of pain in so long. She was just chatting away, talking and saying she feels great. She can't believe it. She feels wonderful.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

For Dr. Nowadsky, the question was what to do next. He had no faith that the system would be able to deal with a doctor like Schneider. Even if hospitals suspected that something was wrong, Dr. Nowadsky didn't believe they would really do anything.

[Dr. Robert Nowadsky]

Part of the problem that I've seen out west and in other rural communities, when these rural hospitals attract a neurosurgeon and these smaller hospitals were suddenly getting tremendous revenue because of the procedures that a neurosurgeon or a spine surgeon was doing. And it caused the administration, I think, in some instances, to look the other way and let those bad practices continue to happen.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

Medicine can be a small world, and in a place like Wyoming, it's even smaller. Doctors aren't keen to call out other doctors. It puts your name and reputation on the line, and it's not a step that's taken often. But Dr. Naradsky knew what strong arm tactics look like. He'd seen them long before he became a surgeon.

[Dr. Robert Nowadsky]

My father was a physician, and I started following him around when I was probably in junior high school.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

They lived in a little mining town in Michigan, one of those places where the company owns almost everything. Many of his father's patients were miners who developed breathing problems. He diagnosed them with lung disease, and

[Dr. Robert Nowadsky]

the bigwigs of the mining company came to him and said, stop calling it that, because we have to pay a lot of compensation when you call it that. And he told the mining company officials where they could go. And he fought the mining company.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

And now, decades later, his son wasn't about to back down either. Dr. Nowsky gathered together the records of all the redo operations he'd done on Dr. Schneider's patients.

[Dr. Robert Nowadsky]

I finally put all of those cases together, and I talked to the Wyoming Board of Medicine.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

The board won't confirm the details, but Dr. Naradsky says he handed over a dossier containing the records of 17 patients. Now it was up to the authorities, but Dr. Schneider wasn't about to take this question, because when he was challenged, he fought back.

[Dr. Robert Nowadsky]

Some of the things that Schneider did to bully and intimidate people that were trying to bring him under control, to me, that's a sociopath.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

Hello, I'm Matt Ford. And I'm Alice Levine. And we're the Hosts of British Scandal yes we are. And our new series starts with a

[Christy Maccachern (Patient's Daughter)]

loud, lovable woman from Bermondsey who becomes one of the most famous people in Britain.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

This is the story of Jade Gooding, the reality TV star who built a fortune just by being herself and then

[Dr. Robert Nowadsky]

lost everything in one of the most

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

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[Christy Maccachern (Patient's Daughter)]

Follow British Scandal wherever you get your

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

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[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

Before Christy took her mom home from the hospital, Dr. Nowotsky handed her a plastic pouch. It contained all the hardware he'd taken out of her mom. There were eight thick screws in total, each several inches long. Some of the rods were bent. The side of them stayed with Kristi. If she wanted to hold Dr. Schneider accountable, she would need to take him to court. To do that, she needed her mom's medical records. So one day, Christy walked into Dr. Schneider's clinic with her young daughter in tow. As she waited for the assistant to get the files, Christy held the bag of screws in her hand.

[Christy Maccachern (Patient's Daughter)]

I was just lightly jingling them and one gentleman asked me, what are those? I said, these are screws from a previous surgery that my mom had from a doctor in this office and they had to all be taken out. And he's like, oh, I hope your mom's doing better now. And I was like, oh yeah, she's doing much better now.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

As she spoke, Christy says Dr. Schneider's assistant sat silently shuffling papers behind her desk. And then she told Kristi, well, we

[Christy Maccachern (Patient's Daughter)]

will be getting these out to you. You don't need to wait here for them. You need to leave. And I said, well, okay. Are you gonna mail them to her? Like, when can we expect them? And she wouldn't answer me. She just said, you need to leave now.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

Christy says she left the office without complaint. But then her phone rang. It was the police.

[Christy Maccachern (Patient's Daughter)]

And he told me that Dr. Schneider's office had called and filed a report against me. And he said that I apparently went into the office screaming on a rampage, and I took a package of screws and threw them through the receptionist's window and shattered her computer screen.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

It sounded surreal, but the officer told Christy that he would need to give her a no trespassing citation. He told her to stay where she was so he could drive down and meet her.

[Christy Maccachern (Patient's Daughter)]

I asked him, I said, if I threw those screws through that window, how would I have the screws still? And I showed him the screws that I still had. And he goes, yeah, that doesn't make sense to me.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

Dr. Schneider has a different version of what happened. He sent us an account from his receptionist claiming that Christy slammed the bag on the desk, causing damage to a computer monitor. He says she was loud and disruptive and was upsetting his patients.

[Christy Maccachern (Patient's Daughter)]

I never yelled. My voice didn't even raise. I had my daughter with me. I wouldn't have scared her like that in there.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

When we asked Schneider about his treatment of Kristi's mom, he denied harming her. He described Mary as, quote, an elderly, obese woman with severe degenerative disc disease and. And previous failed back surgeries from multiple doctors. He says her ongoing pain was caused by chronic scar tissue and that other doctors agreed, quote, there was nothing they could do to help her. And he goes on to say she then found her way to the infamous Dr. Nowadsky. He, as usual, reported that all her previous surgeries were incorrectly done, not healed, and needed a revision surgery. He performed all that, and the patient did not improve. But Christy doesn't see it that way. She says that Dr. Nowadsky's intervention gave her mom priceless years with a better quality of life.

[Christy Maccachern (Patient's Daughter)]

She could enjoy things. She got out of the wheelchair. In fact, she made me give it away immediately. She was proud of the walker after that, after being in a wheelchair, kids would jump on it in the little seat, and she would walk them around, and she'd get up and dance. And this was stuff that my mom could never do before, ever.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

In the end, the lawsuit with Dr. Schneider was settled, like so many others, with no admission of wrongdoing. Meanwhile, the Wyoming Board of Medicine was moving ahead with its own investigation. They wanted to know not just about the accusations of medical negligence, but also those strange anonymous letters from Julie and Doug. Dr. Schneider wrote back with a different version of events. He said that the letters were actually from Naradsky himself. He wrote, Dr. Naradsky hired or convinced a collaborator or patient representatives to mail these letters in an effort to misdirect this investigation. The letters from Julie and Doug were, Schneider said, the all part of Dr. Nowadsky's, quote, master plan to destroy his business, a plan that involved brainwashing his word patients and their families into believing that they were victims of malpractice. People like Christy and her mom, schneider wrote. This is a despicable, unethical and malicious practice that reflects the core of Nowadsky's personality and is key to his business and expansion plans. The way Schneider describes it, Nowadsky had decided that Wyoming just wasn't big enough for the both of them and he was trying to run him out of the state. In the end, the identities of Julie and Doug were never proven. Dr. Schneider's complaint against Nowadsky was not upheld by the Board of Medicine. When we asked the board's executive director about it, he told us that Dr. Nowadsky was a wonderful man and said that he helped them on many occasions. As for Schneider's claim that he was a victim of professional rivalry, Dr. Nowadsky says there was never any bad blood to begin with.

[Dr. Robert Nowadsky]

I don't think I've ever spoken with him and I've never met him.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

But Dr. Schneider would not let it go. As time went on, his apparent threats only escalated. For a while, Schneider had a blog, and he used it to lash out at those he thought wronged him, calling on friends from his time in Los Angeles. My few contacts with shaded pasts who I saved during my time in the gangland LA days have kept close watch and asked to help. I held these wolves at bay. The hounds are released and promised to visit my rivals. The list isn't too long. A few specialty doctors in Wyoming and Montana, such as Jewel Lane in Casper. When he heard about the blog, Dr. Nowsky knew exactly who Schneider was referring to.

[Dr. Robert Nowadsky]

Well, Jewel Lane was my home address in Canada. Casper. I don't take it lightly. He's somebody who's gone off the deep end. You know, I do have a concealed carry permit. After your podcast, I will probably start carrying a gun, meaning I wouldn't be surprised if Schneider decided to come pay me a visit.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

Doctor Nowsky waited to hear back from the Wyoming Board of Medicine about the evidence he'd given them. But the call never came. Not one of the 17 cases he said he handed over resulted in any action being taken. When we approached Dr. Schneider, he told us via his lawyer that throughout his career he maintained a commitment to patient care and medical ethics. He told us he helped thousands of patients and that bad outcomes are an unavoidable risk in neurosurgery. He says that he was the victim of underhand tactics by his competitors and adversaries, who he says were motivated by, quote, professional rivalry when it comes to the malpractice lawsuits. He said that the majority of claims were dismissed or settled without admission of fault. And he claims that impartial panels found Dr. Schneider's care to be within the standard of practice. In most cases, though, when we asked, he declined to provide evidence. Even after Dr. Nowadsky alerted the Board of Medicine, there was Nothing to stop Dr. Schneider from operating outside the hospital. His behavior was becoming more and more erratic. He saw enemies everywhere, dark forces that he believed were out to destroy him. The same traits that had once made him a standout. His unshakable self belief and his habit of shooting from the hip were now pushing him toward the edge. And soon there would be a case that the authorities couldn't ignore.

[Advertiser/Promotional Voice]

All of a sudden, there's something that makes you go, wow. Something that shocks the conscience.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

Oh, man, I don't know how much further your jaw can drop, but this is one that just seemed to get worse and worse. There was a time where I wish

[Advertiser/Promotional Voice]

I really could have shot him.

[Narrator/Host (Laura Beale)]

That's coming up next time on Dr. Death. Listen to Dr. Death the Cowboy on the Audible app or wherever you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can binge all episodes of Dr. Death the Cowboy early and ad free right now. Join Audible in the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts. Dr. Robert Nowadsky passed away in 2025. We include his story with the support of his family. This has been an Audible original. I'm your host, Laura Beale. Executive producers are Russell Finch and Marshall Louie. Our senior reporter is Zachary Stouffer. Tom Wright is our senior producer. Our associate producer is Mohamed Ahmed. Joe Wheeler is the senior story editor. Senior development producer is Rachel B. Doyle. Our production managers are Cherie Houston and Sarah Mathis, our associate. The associate director of production is Latha Pandya. Fact checking by Jacqueline Coletti. Sound design and mixing are by Nicholas Alexander and Mark Pittam. Sound supervisor is Marcelino Villapando. Music supervision by Scott Velasquez. For Frison Sync Production services provided by Novel Executive producer for novel is Max o', Brien, SA.