Posted by Bad Surgeon analyses the story of Dr. Paolo Macchiarini on Netflix: where is the “Experimenten” documentary by Bosse Lindquist?
Bad Surgeon, the documentary released on Netflix in November 2023, has been one of the most streamed docu-series of the year, riding the success of medical-focused stories like Painkiller and Take Care of Maya, which represented some of the most popular productions of the last few months. This time, the protagonist was Dr. Paolo Macchiarini and the incredible story behind his surgeries. One of the most important aspects of this story is the Swedish documentary that first exposed Macchiarini: in the Netflix series, the documentary is identified as “Experimenten“, directed by the investigative producer Bosse Lindquist: in this article, we will satisfy your curiosity about this documentary.
Netflix’s Bad Surgeon does a great job explaining the complete story of Paolo Macchiarini, a celebrity surgeon famous worldwide as a pioneer of regenerative medicine. His experimental procedures consisted of transplanting synthetic scaffolds seeded with stem cells, a futuristic procedure that was supposed to open new frontiers in the medical field. However, as explained by the documentary, these procedures weren’t successfully tested on animals, so there was no evidence of their benefits before they were done on a human patient for the first time.
As the Netflix documentary explains, it was tough for the researchers to prove Macchiarini’s misconduct: when The New York Times published the first article revealing the story, the Karolinska Institute, the Swedish medical university where Macchiarini operated, defended him. There were a couple of surgeons at the Karolinska Institute who documented the problems behind Macchiarini’s surgeries. However, as they explained in the interviews, what really convinced the world was the documentary released by the Swedish television STV, directed by Bosse Lindquist.
Bosse Lindquist is a Swedish journalist and documentary filmmaker. He was known for his work in investigative journalism and had previously produced many documentaries on various social and political issues. His investigation into Paolo Macchiarini’s career resulted in a three-episode documentary called Dokument inifrån: Experimenten (the title would translate into English as “Document from the inside: The experiments“), released in 2016.
You can find the original documentary “Experimenten” by Bosse Lindquist here on the official SVT website. However, the documentary is visible only in Sweden. After the success of that production, Bosse Lindquist produced a second documentary for BBC, called Fatal Experiments: The Downfall of a Supersurgeon, exposing the same story. You can find it here on BBC, but as you can see, it’s unavailable for streaming.
Nevertheless, these two documentaries changed public opinion about Paolo Macchiarini. Immediately after the first documentary was released, the Karolinska Institute published this news on their official website, explaining that the series “contained information that was unknown to the university management, which means that the inquiry into suspected scientific misconduct might be reopened.” After those investigations, Macchiarini will be fired.
As of the end of 2023, Macchiarini has been sentenced to 30 months imprisonment for gross assault by the Swedish appeals court. However, the sentence is currently suspended, Macchiarini’s lawyers lodged an appeal to the Supreme Court and were granted time to present new evidence. The final verdict will come soon, and then we will discover more about Macchiarini’s future.
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