People shocked by new Netflix true crime documentary about horrific surgeon

A true crime series on Netflix has absolutely shocked people online.

True crime continues to carry a huge amount of appeal for audiences online, and this is reflected in the popularity of this new Netflix series.

The docuseries is called Bad Surgeon: Love Under the Knife and follows the career of Paolo Macchiarini.

Macchiarini was a celebrated thoracic surgeon who became widely known for his pioneering techniques.

However, it later emerged that he had botched several procedures, and a number of patients died.

Around the time of these supposedly groundbreaking medical discoveries, he began a relationship with NBC News producer, Benita Alexander.

Alexander had been working on a 2014 special called A Leap of Faith.

Macchiarini was married at the time that the pair met, however, he later told Alexander that he had got divorced and the pair got engaged.

But Alexander later came to suspect that something was wrong, and broke off the engagement in 2015.

Netflix

She even went on to say: “I was engaged to a monster.”

Macchiarini, now aged 65, is at the centre of the new documentary on Netflix, which follows how he went from being widely celebrated to disgraced.

In 2016, one year after his separation from Alexander, Macchiarini was fired from his job at Sweden’s Karolinska University.

His dismissal came in the midst of claims of falsification of his CV and scientific negligence.

Two years later in 2018, Swedish authorities reopened an investigation into three cases.

These included allegations that Macchiarini had inappropriately operated on the same three people involved in this case between 2011 and 2014. They had later died.

In September 2020, the doctor was indicted for aggravated assault, with the charge connected to three surgeries he performed at the Karolinska University Hospital.

Netflix

Macchiarini was found guilty of causing bodily harm in one of the cases, and acquitted on the other two charges. He has denied any criminality.

In 2019, however, Macchiarini was jailed for 16 months after being found guilty by an Italian court of forged documents and for abuse of office.

The Netflix series will take another look at this case working with his former fiancée, Alexander.

Speaking in the documentary, she said: "Was this guy a superhero, a super surgeon and the love of my life? Or was he a dangerous conman and a killer?"

The series also includes testimonies from the families of victims, his former colleagues, as well as the people who worked to bring him to justice.

Bad Surgeon: Love Under the Knife is available to stream on Netflix.