Fatal Experiments: The Downfall of a Supersurgeon

Name: Fatal Experiments: The Downfall of a Supersurgeon
Genre: Documentary
Released: 2016-01-13
Rating: 10.0
Cast: Bosse Lindquist, Dr. Paolo Macchiarini, Johannes Hallbom, Anna Nordbeck, Johannes Wahlström

10.0(3 votes)

1 Season

3 Episodes

January 13, 2016

Documentary

Overview

The series investigates Paolo Macchiarini’s claims to have invented a ground-breaking method to create new organs. His method using plastic tracheas sown with stemcells has been operated on patients in the US, Russia, Sweden and the UK. So far, unfortunately, the track record of his plastic organs is not very good. Almost all patients are dead. And several of his former surgeon colleagues in Sweden claim that not only does the method not work, but that his scientific claim to fame is based on falsified and misrepresented data. Some even claim that his patients have been used as human guinea-pigs.

Status

Ended

Created By

Bosse Lindquist

Network

SVT1

Seasons & Episodes

Season 1

January 13, 2016

Episodes

Episode 1

Part 1

January 13, 201658m10.0

Paolo Macchiarini is one of world's most famous surgeons. He hopes to revolutionize medicine by creating a new type of synthetic organ - a vision that could save many lives. But the Italian surgeon has also been accused of using terminally ill patients as human guinea pigs as well as falsifying his science. Is he a genius - or is he behind one of medicine's biggest scandals?

Episode 2

Part 2

January 20, 201658m10.0

In the summer of 2012, supersurgeon Macchiarini is under pressure when problems start to arise. His pioneering transplant work seems at risk when he discovers faults with the new synthetic organs. Macchiarini still has faith in the procedure and plans new operations. This time it will no longer be fatally ill patients on whom he tries out his new methods, but patients whose condition is not life-threatening. Will Macchiarini succeed with his pioneering work?

Episode 3

Part 3

January 27, 201659m10.0

By 2014, four Karolinska doctors started to question Macchiarini's transplantation of plastic tracheas and raised the alarm at Karolinska University Hospital and Karolinska Institute. They suspected that Macchiarini had been lying in his scientific papers and that patients' lives were being put at risk by a technique which had not been properly tested or investigated beforehand. But still his employer, the Karolinska Institute, defended him and claimed nothing was amiss.