Love and surgery. After watching Bad Surgeon: Love Under The Knife, many documentary viewers might be wondering where Dr. Paolo Macchiarini is now.
Dr. Paolo Macchiarini was a renowned celebrity surgeon who, according to Netflix, was rumored to be Barack Obama and The Pope’s surgeon. He fell into notoriety after doing transplant operations involving plastic windpipes infused with stem cells. It was a groundbreaking due to regenerative medicine when it was launched. However, when patients started to die as a result of the surgery, many eyebrows were raised.
Shortly after Macchiarini implanted the windpipes in several of his patients, NBC reporter Benita Alexander was assigned to do a Meredith Viera special surrounding the doctor. Alexander and Macchiarini fell in love and were engaged. Macchiarini planned to marry Alexander with The Pope officiating and with lavish guests like Barack Obama and Elton John. Things went south after Alexander was tipped off by a friend that the Pope was not even in the country and she started to question his practices. To her discovery, she found out that Macchiarini was still married and did not file for divorce.
“This was not some guy I picked up in a bar. This was a renowned, accomplished, established surgeon whom we had followed all over the world.” Alexander told Vanity Fair on why she didn’t question him. “The very prospect of him making all of this stuff up, even as I described it to friends as surreal and overwhelming, seemed too ridiculous to give it any credence. Why would he risk his reputation by doing that? What reason could he possibly have to lie to me, someone he obviously loved, in that manner?”
Alexander then messaged the Karolinska Institute where Macchiarini had been working about his professional practices and after thorough investigations, he was dismissed from the institute. “He fooled his patients very much the same way he fooled me,” Alexander told USA Today. “They were convinced that he was the greatest hope of their loved ones surviving. He made them believe that he could help them the way he made me believe that he loved me and that he loved my daughter, and he was going to take care of us for the rest of our lives.”
The later allegations of his malpractice landed him in a Swedish appeals court, where he was charged with aggravated assault and bodily harm. So, where is Paolo Macchirini now? Read more to find out.
Where is Paolo Macchiarini now?
Where is Paolo Machciarini now? Paolo Macchiarini is currently serving a 2 1/2-year prison sentence in a Swedish prison after he was sentenced for causing the death of three people between 2011 and 2014 per the Associated Press.
He initially had been sentenced to no prison time by a lower court. Swedish police charged with manslaughter, but the case was soon dropped due to a lack of sufficient evidence. However, in 2023, the Svea Court of Appeal concluded that there were no emergency situations among two of the three patients who later died, while the procedure on the third could not be justified.
“The patients have been caused bodily harm and suffering,” the appeals court said. The patients “could have lived for a not insignificant amount of time without the interventions.”
In March 2016, Macchiarini was fired from Sweden’s Karolinska Institute for breaching medical ethics. He was accused of falsifying his resume and misrepresenting his work.
After the trial, Macchiarini said that he was being treated like a “a war criminal.”
“The intention of harming is the most awful accusation that you can make to a doctor,” he said. His colleagues and supervisors all approved of the surgeries, he said: “In the operating room we were 20, 25 people. What surprises me is, why I am here alone?” He continued, “We did the transplant in good faith.” Macchiarini and his lawyer Bjorn Hurtig said they would appeal the sentencing.
Bad Surgeon: Love Under The Knife is now available to stream on Netflix.
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