‘Bad Surgeon’: What is Yulia Tuulik’s story?

Paolo Macchiarini was a leading surgeon in the mid-2010s who claimed he could treat throat-related conditions by implanting manufactured tracheas covered in stem cells. Many of Macchiarini’s patients faced life-threatening conditions, but Yulia Tuulik underwent the procedure when her life was not at risk.

As explained in the Netflix true crime documentary series Bad Surgeon: Love Under the Knife, Macchiarini’s supposed groundbreaking treatment turned controversial when many of his patients later died. His claims about the medical procedure were among many falsehoods revealed in his public and private life.

As of 2012, Tuulik was a 34-year-old Russian woman whose trachea was damaged in a car wreck but had other medical interventions that helped her breathe. According to Macchiarini, however, his new procedure would improve her quality of life and return her speech.

But like several other Macchiarini patients, Tuulik’s trust in the surgeon may have cost her life.

Tuulik’s first trachea collapsed

Disgraced surgeon Paolo Macchiarini performed not one but two trachea-replacement surgeries on Yulia Tuulik in Russia, where he was employed at the time. Tuulik’s first surgery happened in 2012, and after the operation, Tuulik was breathing and speaking, according to New Scientist. Macchiarini also claimed that stem cells were beginning to grow on the plastic trachea he implanted. The results were “very emotional,” Macchiarini said that year.

Tuulik’s initial procedure seemed successful and captured headlines all over the world. Growing synthetic human organs in this method seemed possible. But not long after Tuulik’s first surgery, her manufactured trachea collapsed, and it had to be replaced.

Tuulik died in 2014

After Yulia Tuulik’s second Paolo Macchiarini trachea was implanted, problems persisted, and Tuulik died in 2014. Little else is known about Tuulik’s life in this period or what caused her death, but the Netflix Bad Surgeon series does include an email written by Tuulik before she died. In it, she described what she called “rotting” in the area on her body where the surgery happened. The smell was so pungent, she said, that “people shudder away.”

Tuulik was just one of many deaths linked with Macchiarini’s disputed procedure at Russia’s Krasnodar Hospital and other healthcare institutions worldwide. Maccharini was fired from Krasnodar when it was revealed he was practicing medicine in Russia without proper licensing.

Maccharini performed many similar operations in his career. In seven of the eight most well-known cases, though, the patient later died. After complications, Macchiarini’s eighth patient removed the implant.