Benita Alexander is a super-talented TV producer, correspondent, narrator and showrunner. But her business and creative savvy did not prevent her from falling victim to a lying surgeon who took advantage of patients and family in serious medical need. In 2023 she created an exposé in the form of a Netflix documentary, “Bad Surgeon: Love Under the Knife.” Since then, the show has been gaining viewers in more than a hundred countries across the globe with knowledge that protects them from medical and financial disappointment from professional crooks like the one who victimized her.

David: You have a successful background in producing news for viewers via NBC.  What in your life led you to a career of exposing truth to viewers and readers?

Benita:  I’ve loved to write since I was a young girl growing up in Australia and, at the age of eight, I won a poetry contest at school. Shortly afterwards, my Uncle Roley came to visit. He was a journalist for Radio Free Europe and I was enthralled by his stories. After he left, I announced to my parents that I also wanted to be a journalist. I was fascinated by the idea of telling people’s stories and exposing difficult, hidden truths.

David: You had a romance with a “super surgeon” who turned out to be a con man – both personally and professionally. What first gave you doubts about Dr. Macchiarini?

Benita: For at least six months prior to my discovering that he was a pathological liar and con artist, I had an uncomfortable sense that something wasn’t right. But it was a vague, nagging fear at the bottom of my gut, nothing concrete or blatantly obvious. So I dismissed it as wedding jitters. We’d been together for almost two years by then and we were in the full throes of planning our lavish wedding in Italy. At the time, the truth about his horrifying medical lies had yet to be exposed and he was still working at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, one of the most prestigious medical institutions in the world and the place that awards the Nobel Prize in medicine. He was even rumored to be in contention for a Nobel prize himself. There was also nothing in our personal life that suggested a problem. He had flown me and my daughter to Italy to meet his mother. His sister’s daughter was going to be one of our flower girls and all of my friends and family had met him and adored him. So, it wasn’t until eight weeks prior to the wedding that I finally got information that made me suspicious enough to start investigating.

David: Did your experience with Dr. Macchiarini change the way you then began to live your own personal, romantic life?

Benita: Yes, it changed it radically. I don’t think it’s possible to have your entire world upended and shattered in this way and not have it change your life. Finding out that the person you thought you were spending the rest of your life with is literally lying to you about everything … hiding at least three other families … fabricating ridiculous relationships with celebrities and dignitaries who don’t even know him … creating a fake, fantasy wedding that existed only in his twisted head … allowing hundreds of your friends and family to spend money on plane tickets and hotels for this wedding even though he knew it was never going to happen … letting you quit your longtime, beloved job and pull your child out of her private school in preparation for moving to Barcelona when he knew that was never going to happen, either … that is incomprehensible.

The shock of it is so debilitating that you become almost paralyzed. Wrapping your head around the reality that the person you trusted implicitly and gave your heart to, is actually a dangerous liar who you don’t actually know at all –– that’s sickening. What makes it worse is that you not only have to navigate the devastating heartbreak, but also terrible embarrassment, shame and humiliation. You can’t shake the questions of “How did I fall for this? How did this happen to me? Why didn’t I see it?” Your ability to trust anybody is irreparably broken and you also wrestle with trusting your own instincts anymore.

So, it has taken me a very long time to even consider opening up my heart again and, even now that I have, I still have moments of irrational panic that something is wrong. Almost a decade later, the trauma of uncovering Macchiarini’s lies still lingers. 

David: Have you had any personal interactions with friends or family members who lost loved ones to Dr. Macchiarini’s failed surgeries? If so, what was that like for you?

Benita: Yes. When I was making my film “He Lied About Everything”, which aired on Investigation Discovery in 2018, I met with several family members who had lost loved ones because of Macchiarini’s failed surgeries. It was absolutely heartbreaking. The absurd lies he told me are nothing compared to what he did to those poor patients. He completely violated them, taking advantage of their vulnerability, using them as human guinea pigs and telling them deadly lies. His reckless disregard for others is so disturbing to me that I still have trouble understanding how someone could be so callously evil.

The most difficult meeting I had was with the husband of the Russian dancer, Julia. She suffered horribly when she died, basically suffocating to death because of the rotting plastic trachea Macchiarini implanted in her. She left behind a young son and when I talked to her husband, he broke down sobbing. He told me that when they first met Dr. Macchiarini, they felt like they had won the lottery because he promised to help Julia. Instead, he now believes they met a monster.

David: Do you have any insight into how Dr. Macchiarini felt about his own many dishonesties, both personally and professionally? Do you think he has any conscience or self-doubt at all?

Benita:  I am not a professional and therefore, of course, I cannot diagnose him. However, I personally believe that he has all the hallmarks of a sociopath. He has absolutely no guilt, no remorse, no regret, and no empathy whatsoever. He only cares about himself and is a classic narcissist and pathological liar. I saw him in court twice in Sweden after he was criminally charged in connection with the deaths of the three patients who were operated on there. And even then, he never once showed an ounce of remorse. Instead, he continually paints himself as the victim. I think he actually believes his own lies.

David: Would you have any advice for someone considering surgery for themselves or someone they care about?

Benita:  After “Bad Surgeon: Love Under the Knife” came out on Netflix in 2023 –– a documentary that tells the story of Dr. Macchiarini’s egregious lies –– I have been contacted by many people with medical horror stories. What I’ve realized is that in the same way a normal, trusting person tends to blindly trust the person they fall in love with, people also tend to blindly trust their doctors. When you seek medical care, you’re extremely vulnerable because something is wrong and you need it fixed. It never occurs to you that a doctor might have selfish or nefarious intentions. So it’s important to ask questions, trust your gut and advocate for yourself. 

One highly concerning theme from the people who’ve reached out to me is the number of surgeries that are horribly botched because an associate or fellow performs the operation, not the surgeon the patients sought out in the first place. So, one specific piece of advice is to make sure that the doctor you want to operate on you is indeed the person who will actually perform the surgery. Check the fine print of your paperwork and consent forms meticulously to make sure that you’re not inadvertently signing something that gives permission for someone else to take over the surgery.

David: What has been the reaction to the “Bad Surgery” documentary from friends and colleagues? Do you take satisfaction in the achievement?

Benita: The documentary was very well received and it hit number one in 15 countries, and top 10 in 88 countries. I am proud of it and think it does an extremely good job of detailing Dr. Macchiarini’s unforgivable medical lies. Viewers are horrified by what he did to his patients … stunned that he got away with it for so long … and shocked by how he was able to pull the wool over the eyes of so many intelligent, prestigious and highly regarded doctors, scientists and institutions.

David: As you look ahead to the future, what are your goals for yourself and your own evolution?

Benita:  When I first went public with my story in 2016, my only goal was to expose Dr. Macchiarini. I wanted the world to know that the man who was nicknamed “the super surgeon” was a farce –– a cunning, dangerous con man. I continued to talk about him afterwards because there was no justice being exacted for what he’d done to his patients. He implanted his fatally flawed plastic trachea into eight patients and the only one who remains alive today had the trachea removed. Macchiarini was fired from Karolinska, his scientific papers were retracted, he was blasted in the press and widely disgraced, but he still wasn’t being held accountable criminally. Finally, in 2023, he was convicted on three counts of aggravated assault and sentenced to 2.5 years behind bars. It wasn’t enough in my opinion, but it was some semblance of justice.

So now, my goal has shifted to using my story to empower other women and to shine a light on the damage that is caused by victim shaming. I’ve been contacted by hundreds of women from all over the world, thanking me for being brave enough to tell my story in such raw, candid detail. Also thanking me for making them feel less alone, less stupid, less helpless. We need to talk about this and we need to educate people. It is sadly much too easy to judge women who are betrayed by these con artists, questioning their decisions and attacking them as stupid for falling for it.

This incenses me because these women did nothing wrong. Their only so-called “mistake” was falling in love with the wrong person and trusting the person they loved, which is a normal thing to do. We need to stop shaming women and focus instead on how these manipulative liars are able to charm even the most intelligent people and institutions. We need to make sure people know what signs to look out for, how to get away from someone like this, how to stop them, and how to reclaim your life if you do get tangled in their deceptive webs.

David: When you reflect on your career what has been the biggest lesson?

Benita:  Obviously I’ve made mistakes. I got romantically involved with Dr. Macchiarini while I was still finishing up a documentary about his work. When that documentary aired, nobody knew yet that he wasn’t the super star the world thought he was. He was still working at Karolinska, his surgeries and scientific papers were still being lauded around the world, the whistleblower doctors had not yet come forward in Sweden with their suspicions that something about his surgeries was off, and nobody knew he was a fake. But there are very good reasons that there is an unwritten ethical rule in journalism that you don’t get involved with someone you are doing a story about and I still wish I had not violated that cardinal rule. 

However, I also hope that my mistake can serve as an important lesson on just how these master manipulators manage to get what they want. When I first began working on the story about Macchiarini, I was in a highly vulnerable place emotionally. My ex-husband, who I’d been divorced from for three years, was dying of brain cancer. I was terrified about how his death was going to impact our young daughter and deeply sad about all of it. This is when Macchiarini pounced. We had many long talks on plane rides or dinners after filming. As I told him what was happening in my life, he came across as an incredibly kind, wise, caring listener. I slowly began to fall for him, clueless that I had already been targeted and was being used. He had an agenda with me from day one.

Although the world didn’t know it yet, he of course knew that at some point the gig would be up and it was only a matter of time before people learned the truth about him and his surgeries. I believe his goal from day one was to make me fall in love with him so that when everything did hit the fan, he would have me –– a successful, award winning journalist –– in his back pocket to help him and support him.

David: Thank you for your time. Any words of wisdom to all the readers? 

Benita:  I always advise now that whether it’s a romantic relationship or you are seeking out a doctor for medical help, you need to be hyper vigilant about protecting yourself when you are vulnerable. These con artists, these bad doctors, all have the same motive: they want something from you. It could be money, it could be to boost their reputation, or to use you in some other way. But whatever it is, they can sense that you are vulnerable and they know how to manipulate that vulnerability. Think about it. When you are feeling sad or vulnerable, what do you want? It’s so basic but essentially, you want someone to wrap their arms around you and tell you that everything is going to be okay. These con artists know that and they use it against you. It’s as if they can smell vulnerability.

Also, it may sound cliche, but the old adage to always trust your gut is a wise one. As I mentioned earlier, I knew for a while before I figured out that Macchiarini was a con artist and that something wasn’t right. But I kept dismissing those nagging little red flags at the bottom of my gut. Never do that. If your gut is telling you something is wrong, it almost always is.

BENITA ALEXANDER

Watch my story on NETFLIX: BAD SURGEON 

Follow me on IG &TikTok: @benitaalexander_official

Watch my Podcast: “Benita & The Berracas”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFkA9DcX8W0&t=457sMore info: www.benitaalexander.com