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Kathy Monaco had seen her share of bad backs.

She'd worked in medical administration for nearly 25 years. For the last four,

she'd worked for Dr. John Schneider, handling patient requests at his clinic. So when her husband

Russell heard his back lifting a beer keg, Kathy knew he needed to see a doctor. According to court

documents, she later said, he was in a lot of pain, and I said,

it's time to go, we need to get checked out because you can't miss work. Russell was 47 years old.

He and Kathy lived with their two daughters, Mallory and Madison, and their husky, Timba. Russell worked

as a machinist and in a spare time coached softball

for one of his daughter's teams. He'd had trouble with his back before, and Russell wasn't sure

about his local surgeon. So Kathy called in a favor. She sent her boss an email. It read,

I know you're busy and I'm sorry to bother you again, but could you look

at my husband's lumbar MRI that was done yesterday? Dr. Schneider got back to her the same day.

He told her that Russell had three ruptured discs and would need an operation pretty quickly.

But if they wanted Schneider to do it, they would have to go all the way to the hospital where

he did his surgeries in Cody, Wyoming.

And that was out of their health care providers network.

She said later, it's worth it in my book to have somebody you trust do the surgery for you

versus somebody you don't know.

We knew if he needed surgery, we wanted Dr. Schneider to do it. Kathy was doing what any wife would do, putting her

husband's care in the hands of the doctor she trusted most, the doctor she worked for. She

...