Bad Surgeon: Love Under the Knife (2023) s01e03 Episode Script

1
Hi, my love. I, um
[sighs] I was thinking,
while you were sleeping
Isn't it incredible
that, uh, next week we are to visit, uh,
the place where we will marry?
[tense music playing]
[Benita] The man has just
railroaded my entire life.
Now, what do I do about the wedding?
We had almost 300 people coming
from around the world.
And they all think they're going
to this big, fairy-tale wedding
in a little over a month, you know.
They've bought plane tickets already.
I mean, my head is swimming.
I thought, "What do I do?"
I've given up everything
for a man who's an illusion.
I just sent out an email that said,
"We regret to inform you that due to
unfortunate personal circumstances
we have to call off
our much-anticipated wedding."
I'm thinking, I'm not just gonna accept
this nonsense and walk away.
I want answers.
I go into full-on investigative mode,
you know. I just want the truth.
Every place I had never called
because he told me not to call,
I start calling.
The Vatican had never heard
anything about our wedding,
and Paolo most certainly was not
the pope's private, personal doctor,
as he claimed.
When he told me
he was with the Clintons in Germany,
when he told me
he was with the Obamas in Hawaii,
none of that was true.
The list just went on
and on and on and on.
I decided to start recording
phone calls with him.
- Hello?
- [Paolo] Hello, my love. How are you?
[Benita] Trying to gather information.
Which phone are you using?
'Cause you're on both
the Swedish and the Russian one.
[Paolo] No. This is the Russian one.
[Benita] But I'm still missing
key pieces of information.
There had to be a damn good reason
he kept canceling trips to Barcelona.
I called a couple of my girlfriends
and I said, "Look, will you help me?"
[tense music builds]
[Benita and friends] We're in Barcelona.
- Oh my God, this is so crazy.
- [all laughing]
[Benita] I knew in my gut that the real
answers I needed were in that house.
I didn't know what, but I knew
there was something hiding in that house.
- I had to go.
- [Paolo on video] This is my closet.
Hello.
It had to be, kind of, the surprise attack
when he wasn't expecting me.
- [chuckling]
- Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
- Amen.
- And don't you ever forget it, assholes.
Thank you.
[dramatic music rises and fades]
[Nancy] We're getting ready
to do a little road trip.
Also known as a drive-by.
- [Leigh] "Espionage" in French.
- [Benita laughs] Also known as a stakeout.
[Leigh] What does that mean?
[Nancy] That means we're getting ready
to go check some shit out.
[Benita] I went to Barcelona
with two friends.
Leigh, a very dear friend from Australia.
And Nancy, my best friend from college.
I'm now lying to Paolo.
I told him that I was
so devastated about the wedding
that I was taking a trip with
some friends to Upstate New York,
you know, that I just needed to get away.
And he's telling me that he's in Russia.
So I had laid out this whole plan.
I even ordered a blond wig
because I thought
I might need to disguise myself.
[Leigh] Who is this blond woman
in the back seat?
Yolanda.
[Leigh] Yolanda. Ah!
- Or Elena.
- [Nancy] Elena.
- Or Emanuela.
- [Leigh] Paula.
- [Nancy] Paulina.
- Paulina.
[Benita] I didn't know what I was
gonna find in this house in Barcelona.
So we drive to this little seaside town.
I am a nervous wreck.
To the point that Leigh was saying,
"You need to find a way to calm down."
"I can literally feel your energy
from the back seat."
I mean, I didn't know what to do.
We were all anxious.
[tense music builds slowly]
Paolo's house is at the top of this hill.
And we get up there.
So, Leigh and Nancy jump out of the car.
[Benita on video] My heart is in my chest.
I'm gonna puke.
The plan was that Nancy and Leigh
would go to the door first.
I wanted to stay in the car,
and I wanted them to do
the initial reconnaissance.
Nancy and Leigh just knocked on his door.
I saw him come down
the steps with his dog. Asshole.
He's there. Not in fucking Russia.
- [Leigh] Hello.
- [Nancy in Spanish] Paolo, how's it going?
- This is Leigh.
- [Leigh] Hello.
[Paolo] What are you doing here?
- [dog barking]
- [Nancy] We're passing by. On holiday.
I'm not sure what's going on, but
The house is gated,
but it's up high enough on the hill
that you can see the veranda
around the house.
And I see a woman.
A blond woman and two little kids.
[tense music fades out]
Even from where I am,
I can hear them saying, "Dad."
[Benita on video] Two little kids.
Coming down the stairs.
You lying fucking sack of shit!
Yeah, I see you.
Motherfucking fucker, fuck you!
[Benita] Up until I saw the children,
I was planning to get out of the car
and confront him.
And then I couldn't move. I was frozen.
You asshole!
Fuck you!
Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck you!
[shouts] Fuck!
[panting, sobbing]
I don't think
I've ever cried like that before.
It was such a deep, guttural,
visceral cry of absolute
devastation and horror
and heartbreak, you know?
So, the reason you haven't
brought me to Barcelona,
the reason you haven't
brought my daughter to Barcelona,
the whole time,
you're hiding another family there.
I've quit my job.
I've pulled my daughter out of her school.
I feel a kind of anger
that I've never felt before in my life.
And at the root of this,
mostly, is my daughter.
You fucking walk in
and you lie to her too.
You sit in front of her
and you lie to her little face.
You talk to her about the school
you've enrolled her in, in Barcelona,
and the life
she's going to have in Barcelona.
How dare you?
How fucking dare you?
This just turned me upside down.
I couldn't fathom that for two years,
he had been hiding another family.
All these last-minute cancellations.
All these emergency surgeries.
He's lying through his teeth.
He's hiding them.
He's hiding me.
How many other families are there?
How many other women are there?
- [bells tolling]
- [dramatic notes rise and fade]
[in Italian] My name is
Ana Paula Bernardes Pedrosa.
My son Danilo and I
were in a car accident in 2009.
And our lives changed forever.
[tense music builds slowly]
After the accident, he was intubated.
The tube damaged the trachea.
[newswoman] Careggi Hospital
has appointed as the head
of its world-leading regenerative
thoracic surgery department
internationally renowned surgeon,
Paolo Macchiarini.
[Ana Paula] Professor Macchiarini
examined Danilo
and said he would operate on him
the following morning.
He explained the whole operation,
in great detail.
So I asked him, "Could my son die?"
"Madam, please!"
"No patient has ever died under my care,
and your son won't be the first."
So I said, "Praise God."
And he said, "God? What God?"
"There is no God."
He went like this.
"See these?"
"This is God."
The next day, he operated on Danilo.
He told me there had been
complications with the surgery.
He had to be put into an induced coma
for one week.
An artery had burst.
So I asked, "And now?"
"It's all fine. I rebuilt the artery."
"Everything's okay.
We've examined everything."
"He's absolutely fine."'
A week went by.
Danilo began following things
with his eyes.
Like this.
He began to say, "Yes No"
by squeezing his hand.
He came on by leaps and bounds.
One morning, my phone rang.
They said, "Madam,
please come to Careggi
as soon as possible."
"Your son has had a hemorrhage,
and we've taken him
to the operating theater."
[tense music builds]
I got there and I said, "Where is he?"
Then I saw the room where Danilo had been.
There was blood everywhere.
And so I tried to call Paolo.
Paolo wasn't in Italy.
I said, "You must come back, Professor."
And he told me, "But I cannot."
"Look, I'm operating on your son
even at a long distance."
"I'm on the phone to the team."
"I'll call you once we're finished."
Eventually, he called me.
He said, "Is someone there with you?"
I said, "You've never asked me that.
What's going on?"
"Is something wrong with Danilo?"
I said to him, "Is my son dead?"
"Is my son dead?"
"Is that what you want to tell me?"
"Unfortunately, madam."
[inhales deeply]
[sobbing softly]
"I'm really sorry," he said.
[somber music plays]
At 2:40 on 2nd April 2011,
my son died.
Right after Danilo's death,
I made an official complaint.
I wanted to know why Danilo died.
I blamed the hospital.
I was sure that Paolo
had nothing to do with it.
But then my lawyer called and said,
"You must tell Paolo that he too
is under investigation for manslaughter."
At this point,
I picked up the phone and called him.
And he said to me, "Hey."
"Relax."
"You know I have nothing to do with it."
I believed him.
Everything he told me I believed 100%.
[light instrumental music plays]
After Danilo died,
Paolo was calling me every day.
He was always comforting me.
I started getting used to
his phone calls.
If the phone rang and it was Paolo,
I would feel happy.
That's how it started.
I'd get butterflies in my stomach
and I would wonder
[dramatic notes rise and fade]
"He's a genius. He travels the world."
"Why is he interested in me?"
[dramatic music playing]
[Bosse in English] Whilst we were
investigating Paolo Macchiarini,
we were producing a documentary.
Yes.
When I saw the footage that showed
Paolo's surgery on Julia Tuulik
[surgeon in Russian]
It has folded over and become completely
[Paolo] What can be done about it?
[surgeon] Nothing.
[in English] It raised the stakes,
and made the whole situation
a lot more, um, dangerous and difficult.
It was crucial to see
the scientific background to all this
that he was building on.
Obviously, I wanted to see
the whistleblowers.
[dramatic music builds]
After a lot of, sort of, uh, spy magazine,
chasing about where I wasn't allowed
to know their names,
their address,
and sort of led to different places,
I finally entered this flat,
and there was this wild-eyed guy
in a T-shirt,
not looking like a heart surgeon at all.
[Matthias] I had a shaved head
and a Black Sabbath T-shirt on.
I was at the height of paranoia.
Bosse thought I was just
absolutely insane.
But I had him on my couch
and told him the story
that Paolo had never done
the animal studies
with the plastic windpipe.
Because then I knew that he was actually
just killing these patients.
[dramatic notes rise and fade out]
[Bosse] I started to realize
the whistleblowers understood
much, much earlier than I did
how dangerous Macchiarini
and his methods were.
Paolo was doing everything
in the reverse order.
You're supposed to end up with humans
when you've done this extensive testing.
And instead, he started off with humans,
and then went to the lab rats.
Making these discoveries
about the lack of animal experimentation
was really a critical moment,
because if you haven't done that,
you're not a real scientist.
So, obviously, he had been lying.
But we needed proof to be sure
that he actually had lied to his patients.
[newsman] Andemariam Teklesenbet Beyene
shows off his scar after surgery
that saved his life.
The father of two recently became
the world's first recipient
of a man-made organ.
[Andemariam] He told me straight,
"We did not try this to human beings."
"We tried this into pigs."
He was very confident.
Enough to make me, you know, pursue it.
You know, to make me believe in this.
Well, then I accepted it.
But I was very much scared.
Frankly speaking. [chuckles]
[Bosse] Paolo had been
leading his patients to believe
that there had been done
animal experimentations.
[Kalle] If Andemariam
had never been conned
by Paolo Macchiarini,
never signed his informed consent,
he most probably
would have been alive today.
[Matthias] Andemariam was coerced
into doing this procedure.
Paolo lied to him.
He was the guinea pig.
- [Paolo grunts]
- [Bosse] And how are you?
I am fine.
[Bosse] That's very good.
When I was certain that the patients
had been subjected to unproven methods,
lethal methods
that actually were killing them,
I and the team had an obligation
to confront Paolo with our findings.
What do you want to say?
[Bosse] Before the rats
and animal experiments,
you, uh, put the, uh
synthetic scaffolding into five patients.
And to me, that seems extraordinary
Before the rats, I put
[dramatic music builds slowly]
That's a wrong statement.
[Bosse] But if I just look
at the chronology, I see five surgeries.
- [Paolo sighs deeply]
- No rats, no pigs, no animal experiments.
- And then animal experiments.
- Uh-huh.
And then I could see a light
going up in his eyes and he said
Are you sure?
Why you don't go to the lab
and you look at the data in the lab book?
Here or in Russia?
How do you know that
we didn't do animal studies in Russia?
"Of course you haven't been allowed
into the Russian lab books. No!"
"You don't know what beautiful
animal experiments we did in Russia."
"No. And they worked.
They were fine. They were excellent."
And I could see Paolo literally becoming
happy and beaming and glowing,
of having rewritten history.
And And probably reality.
I I think he actually,
more or less, believed what he said.
So it's it's totally untrue.
That was a revealing moment for me
because that was the only time
when I could actually see a lie
being manufactured in real time.
You are You are a producer.
A TV producer, right?
How can you understand,
possibly understand all the details
of a medical evaluation?
After a couple of hours of interview,
he thought he was the winner.
Can you switch off?
Okay, can you switch off this as well?
[Bosse] I was sure he would call
the vice-chancellor and his associates
at the institute and say,
"This fucking guy from television
has found all this stuff."
"He's going to paint a terrible,
black picture of all of us
now on national TV."
"Get ready."
[dramatic music fades out]
And he didn't.
He didn't mention it to anyone.
KAROLINSKA INSTITUTE
He was so sure of himself,
and so sure that he would succeed,
he just, uh, kept on.
Just kept on.
[bells tolling]
[gentle piano music playing]
[in Italian] We'd been texting
and chatting all summer.
The first time we met again,
it was to go out for dinner together.
I was so nervous.
Thinking, "God, what am I going to wear?!"
And then he arrived, I heard the bell.
"My God, it's him!"
He was carrying some flowers.
Two roses, which he gave to me.
We had dinner.
He'd look at me from time to time,
in such a way
that I just couldn't wait to kiss him.
I remember it very clearly.
He said, "Ana Paula."
I said, "Yes?"
He held my shoulder, turned me around.
That was our first kiss.
It was something I'd been waiting for,
for a long time.
I just didn't want to let him go again.
[gentle piano music ends]
And that was when our relationship began.
[pleasant instrumental music playing]
When I travelled with Paolo,
we'd fly first class.
Hotels would always be five-star.
We'd eat in the most
fashionable restaurants.
Money wasn't an issue
when you were with him.
Paolo loved doing surprises.
I'd think he was in
another part of the world,
when actually he was already in Italy.
He'd call me saying,
"You have one hour
to prepare your luggage."
We're going who knows where.
To Paris.
To Positano.
Barcelona.
New York.
I remember when he took me to Venice.
We were just like two lovebirds,
on a gondola.
I didn't understand why he always
wanted to take pictures from behind.
"If we see your face,
we'll miss the surroundings."
Paolo told me
I couldn't post the pictures.
Because everyone knew
that he was under investigation
for my son, Danilo.
Paolo told me that once the case was over,
there'd be nothing to worry about,
nothing to hide.
That we'd be able to be out in the open,
take pictures and walk hand in hand.
I was waiting for that moment.
After two years,
the investigation came to an end
and the allegations
against Paolo were dropped.
I was really happy.
I felt relieved.
Paolo and I had a daughter.
Our beautiful baby girl.
He found us a small apartment.
But he was so busy
with his surgeries.
So he was always away.
He was always on the go.
I felt a bit neglected,
but he was doing a good thing, right?
He was saving lives.
[light instrumental music plays]
[Benita in English] That plane ride home
from Barcelona was so sobering.
I was in such a pensive,
reflective state, you know?
I mean, I felt like the whole world
was sitting on my head.
I now had all the evidence that I needed.
It was indisputable
that Paolo was lying to me.
Had been lying to me the whole time.
There was never going to be any wedding.
When I stepped off the plane, I decided,
"I want to get rid of everything
in my apartment
that has to do with Paolo."
There was artwork on the wall
that he had bought.
There was a whole closet
full of clothes that he left there.
And he had given me
so much beautiful jewelry.
The engagement ring
was made out of white gold.
With all these beautiful,
expensive diamonds.
And he had told me
that this ring was worth $100,000.
[dramatic notes rise and fade]
I walk into this jewelry shop and I said,
"Listen, I need some jewelry appraised."
And it's this little man.
He's peering closer and squinting.
I said, "How much is it worth?"
He said, "If you're lucky,
you could sell this for $1,000.
And I don't even know you'll get that."
He looked up at me,
said, "I'm really sorry."
"I don't know your whole story,
but I feel really terribly for you."
"Whoever this man is,
he's not a good man."
[pensive instrumental music playing]
Once I unraveled all the lies
and realized he was literally
lying to me about everything, you know
Not even my ring was real.
I thought, "Oh my God. Oh my God!"
If he's lying to me like this,
there's no way in hell it stops there.
There's no way he's not also lying
in the medical and professional arena.
And then it hits me that
I have to tell my story.
I have to go public.
It's my responsibility
to let the world know
that Dr. Paolo Macchiarini
is not who you think he is.
[tense music builds]
I had a friend who knew somebody
at the magazine Vanity Fair.
I didn't want to wait.
I wanted the story out fast as possible.
So, I met this reporter
on a busy rooftop in Manhattan.
Just started gushing.
"This happened and that happened
Blah, blah, blah."
It's all coming out.
I'm talking a mile a minute.
I don't think he was taking notes,
trying to keep up with this insane story.
And at one point he says,
"Okay, this is nuts."
[dramatic notes rise and fade out]
The article in Vanity Fair
came out in January of 2016,
so only six months
after our supposed wedding.
[Bosse] Just before the Swedish
public service broadcaster
was about to go live with the series,
somebody told me there is this article
you might want to read in Vanity Fair.
I googled it and found the article,
and there was Paolo,
the very same Paolo
I'd spent most of the previous year
filming or interviewing.
And suddenly, I saw a lot
that had been going on
that I had no idea about.
[dramatic notes playing]
It quickly dawned on me
that what had happened in his love life
actually confirmed a number of things
that I had found in his professional
and scientific and medical life.
I think one of the major things
was how the con progressed.
It was a very slow, meticulous progression
from a small lie to a slightly bigger lie
to an even bigger lie,
and then slowly, slowly, slowly
building this enormous thing
[dramatic notes build then fade out]
that is based on nothing, basically.
And that's the way
he'd been working in medicine as well.
If you really want to do a successful con,
you have to do it slowly so that people
almost don't notice what's going on.
[light instrumental music playing]
[Ana Paula in Italian] I was in Rome.
My relationship with Paolo was normal.
It was fine.
And I got this phone call
from a journalist
who told me an article
had come out in a magazine,
and he told me the whole story.
[ominous music playing]
I went on the website,
and I saw him on a gondola with her.
My whole world collapsed.
Can you believe it? I mean
My whole world collapsed.
I called him straight away.
He told me it was all a lie.
That it wasn't true.
"This is the woman
who made the documentary."
"She fell in love with me."
I said, "But what were you doing
in a gondola with her, in Venice?"
I said, "You miserable wretch! Son of a"
"What have you done to me?"
"There's another woman in America?"
"Since when?"
"How long have you been with this woman?"
"Don't you have any respect
for your daughter?"
I thought about
when he took me to New York.
On the first day,
Paolo went sightseeing with me.
Then he took me back to the hotel,
and he told me that he had to work.
The next day, I was left by myself,
and I had to take a plane in the evening.
Then I realized he took me to New York
because she lives in New York.
I lived in Rome, and he took her to Rome.
Right under my nose.
I was angry.
So angry, God knows.
He lied.
Paolo takes advantage
of people that are vulnerable,
of people that are fragile.
What doctor,
after one of his patients dies,
is in constant contact
with the mother of that patient?
He abused his position.
I hate him.
I've never hated anyone in my whole life.
Until then, I didn't know what hate was.
I took the baby and all my belongings,
and I left.
[music ends]
- [horns honking]
- [sirens wailing]
[tense music playing]
[Benita in English] How many
other women were in Paolo's life?
I have no idea.
Good morning.
I hope that you slept very well
and had a chance to dream of us.
He sent me so many videos.
All these gushing, loving messages.
You know, "I love you."
I love you.
- [Benita] "I miss you."
- I miss, um you.
"Love of my life." "You're my everything."
Only a few of the videos
does he say my name.
So now, in hindsight, was he just
hitting send on every different phone?
You know, Russia, Sweden, Italy, Spain
Every woman got the same video?
Probably. Possibly.
And I thought a lot about
this glowing story I had made about him.
I just need to help my patients.
Clearly, if I can save
many among my patients,
then even better.
[Benita] And it just
hit me like a ton of bricks.
He picked me because I'm a journalist.
He's roped me into something
where I'm now complicit
in helping him cover up his fucking lies.
"When the shit hits the fan,
I'm going to have
my loving fiancée by my side
who will do whatever she can
to protect me."
I think he was using me for that reason.
[dramatic music builds]
A discovery right out of a movie script
Doctors are celebrating a medical first
Changing the game and saving lives.
[Johannes] I personally don't believe that
it would have been possible
for Macchiarini to do anything at all
if the media would not have willfully
participated in creating this lie.
This was part of
an orchestrated media campaign
where many different people
in different institutions
in different countries
had participated in
the withholding of information,
or sometimes even outright lying,
uh, and how that
turned into a web of lies.
For example, the film Supercells
that had this beautiful storyline
about a girl who had a hole in her throat.
This is Julia.
[in Russian] I've got so many plans,
so much I want to do.
First I need to get well,
and then I'd like to continue my studies.
[Johannes in English] Later we find
an email that has been written
by the producers of Supercells,
just prior to the film
having its premiere.
"Dear Julia Tuulik.
I hope you have recovered well
and are back in St. Petersburg
and enjoy life."
"The documentary is going to be shown
this month. Do you want to see it?"
"How are you anyway?"
"Are you having any trouble?
Is the new trachea working as it should?"
And Julia answers.
Remember that this is before
the film actually has a premiere.
"I am very, very bad."
"More than half a year
I have spent in Krasnodar Hospital."
"Three weeks after the first surgery,
I started rotting from the inside."
"And I am still rotting."
"I now weigh 47 kg."
"I can barely walk."
"It's difficult to breathe."
"I have no voice."
"It smells from me in a way
that people shudder away."
"The artificial tracheas are pure shit."
"Sorry to say so. Yours, Julia."
So the producers of this film that
becomes the starting point of our journey,
they know that this is fake.
It took exactly one year from the day
when we were first handed
the copy of the whistleblowers' complaint
until broadcast.
A #184 DOCUMENTARY
THE EXPERIMENTS
Well, that's a huge
That's a huge accusation.
- [Bosse] And what would your reply be?
- I don't reply to this accusation.
That documentary had a massive,
massive impact in Sweden, you know.
Everybody has seen it.
[Benita] Understanding what
he had done to his patients,
and the horrible way they died,
and what they had suffered,
and how much they had suffered
was so appalling and so heartbreaking.
You watch that documentary and you realize
this thing never worked.
It never stood a damn chance of working.
He was taking a goddamn plastic tube,
he might as well have taken a straw,
and putting it in people's throats.
I believe he knew it.
I think he knew all along
this fucking thing was never gonna work,
and he did it anyway.
The reaction in public was just
people were so upset.
People were crying,
they were so disturbed.
[Bosse] There was something
that touched people's hearts.
I think it was the impunity
of what had been going on
and the arrogance of this man
that was instantly recognizable
to a big part of the population.
The picture of you that,
I guess, uh, the TV audience have
is that you're a person
who takes risks with people's lives.
What would you like to say
to the Swedish people?
As long as you are not um, found guilty,
you have the presumption of innocence.
The accusations are false.
And it's, uh, quite astonishing
to accuse someone
for doing experimental surgery
when, indeed,
it was an experimental procedure.
I have been treated
like I would never treat even the
worst animal.
Everybody was upset, and,
you know, everybody demanded heads to fly.
The Karolinska leadership had to resign.
But they got new jobs
at different positions.
[sucks teeth]
- [elevator dings]
- [dramatic notes rise and fade out]
[Matthias] When the New York Times article
came out, I thought it was over for Paolo.
I thought the FBI
was going to parachute in
and lift him out of there.
Nothing happened.
The documentary that Bosse made,
that was what killed him.
[in Swedish] The surgeon and scientist
Paolo Macchiarini
has now been fired from
the Karolinska Institute.
[pensive music playing]
[Bosse in English] Finally, now the cases
of the three Swedish patients
have been brought to court.
There has to be a reckoning.
There should be punishment.
When I see him in court,
I want to look good.
Yeah, it's been seven years since I
since I found out
that he was lying about everything.
And it's been seven years of me
being in investigative mode
and exposing him.
[laughing] I'm sure
he doesn't want to see me.
I'm sure he wishes
I would shut the hell up.
But I'm not gonna shut the hell up.
Not until there's justice.
[in Swedish] Today begins the trial
against the former star surgeon
Paolo Macchiarini, in what has been called
one of the biggest lies
in medical history.
[in English] It's such a weird feeling
to look at this man and think,
you know, this is a man
I traveled the world with,
a man I thought I was marrying,
a man I thought I was spending
the rest of my life with,
a man that was in my bed.
And now he's an accused criminal.
I feel anger, I feel disgust.
I feel a whole host of things.
[pensive music builds]
FULL
Seeing Paolo behind plate glass windows
with his headphones
and interpreters and lawyers
He belongs in that chair.
He should be in a court of law
trying to explain his crimes.
SOLNA DISTRICT COUR
I tried to get in eye contact
with Paolo several times.
But he didn't look up.
He just looked down on a spot
on the floor in front of him.
Of course, I feel that I also have
blood on my hands.
And, uh, I basically wanted to
to tell him how much I, uh
hate him
for what he's done.
To me.
To the patients.
To the relatives of the patients.
And, uh, actually, for fooling the world
to believe in this concept
of plastic windpipes.
[tense music builds slowly]
[music fades out]
[dramatic notes rise]
[Bosse] The court came
to the surprising conclusion
that only one of the three
Swedish procedures was actually illegal,
the horrific procedure on Yesim Cetir.
They exonerated Paolo
on the first two procedures,
claiming that the patients
were going to die acutely.
That they were in the process of dying,
which is simply not true.
That wasn't the case.
It sends a really dangerous signal
to the medical world
that it's okay to try out new,
dangerous, lethal innovations,
that you haven't tested,
on animals or in the lab,
on human patients.
[Benita] He's been put
on probation for two years.
It's the equivalent of a slap on the hand.
It's wrong for those patients who died.
I think it's tragic, really,
for the families of the patients.
And letting him walk around
and do whatever he wants,
um and not spend a day behind bars
isn't justice. You know?
Because his patients
deserve more than that.
The families of his patients
deserve more than that.
[somber music playing]
[Dorna] He didn't take care of my son.
I feel cheated.
Deceived.
[dramatic music builds slowly]
[Kalle] Even after everything what
happened, Paolo can still be a surgeon.
He's got his license.
And in countries which is not really
covered by this media and this verdict,
there he most probably can
still do these operations.
And he will.
[Matthias] Medicine has replaced religion,
especially in Western civilizations.
[monitor beeping]
We want miracle solutions to
the horrible diseases that afflict us.
I know that he said that his hands
were instruments of God.
We all want a messiah, we all want,
you know, a pill that'll fix everything,
and it just doesn't work like that.
[Johannes] Macchiarini was selling dreams.
But he wouldn't be selling them
if there weren't any buyers.
It's not just the conscious,
evil actions of one man
that lead to bad results.
It is also the small
cowardly non-actions.
And they exist
in each and every one of us.
All the time.
[dramatic notes rise and fade out]
[light instrumental music playing]
[tense music builds slowly]
[dramatic music playing]