Bad Surgeon is a 2023 documentary series that traces the rise and unraveling of Paolo Macchiarini, a thoracic surgeon once celebrated for pioneering synthetic and stem-cell-based windpipe transplants. Across three parts it assembles interviews, records, and firsthand accounts.
What is Bad Surgeon about?
The series follows Macchiarini's emergence as a leading figure in regenerative surgery, where he claimed to build and implant artificial tracheas seeded with a patient's own cells. Told through the recollections of colleagues, investigators, and a journalist who became personally involved with him, it lays out how questions began to surface about patient outcomes and the accuracy of published results. Medical whistleblowers, hospital reviews, and sustained reporting gradually reframe an acclaimed breakthrough as the subject of formal inquiry and legal scrutiny.
Cast & crew
Because this is a factual production, its participants appear as themselves rather than as scripted characters. Among those interviewed is Benita Alexander, a journalist whose reporting and personal history with the surgeon form a central thread, alongside clinicians and researchers such as Karl-Henrik Grinnemo and Oscar Simonson, who describe their roles in raising concerns about the procedures.
Context & significance
Bad Surgeon was produced in the United Kingdom and released in 2023, drawing on investigative journalism, academic inquiries, and court proceedings connected to work carried out at institutions in Europe. The events span roughly the early 2010s onward, a period when regenerative medicine and stem-cell research attracted wide attention and high expectations. The series situates the story within that scientific climate, presenting the timeline of transplants, internal reviews, and subsequent investigations in sequence. It is structured across three episodes and holds an IMDb rating of 7.2.
Where & how to watch
Bad Surgeon is available to stream on K-Time once you sign in with a free account; the page you are reading stays open without logging in. K-Time serves the Iranian diaspora with a Farsi interface, and this title offers a Persian dub as well as Persian subtitles, so viewers can follow it in Farsi or in the original audio.