Just as there are medical professionals in the world with an impeccable career, there are some with a license to be impeachable for life. This shows it Dr DeathWondery’s true crime podcast that, following its great success, became a two-season audiovisual series whose episodes are now available on Flow and Universal+.
Each season tells a true story about doctors who committed malpractice and claimed the lives of many patients. The first part focuses on the life and work of Christopher Duntsch (starring Joshua Jackson), the former American neurosurgeon who was nicknamed “Doctor Death” for the multiple acts of medical negligence he committed in the hospitals where he worked.
The second, which recently premiered in Argentina, reveals the atrocities committed by Italian Paolo Macchiarini (played by actor Edgar Ramírez) in different countries. This professional rose to fame and gained the trust of the medical community after performing the first synthetic organ transplant in the world, but at the cost of the health of critically ill patients whom he tricked into performing experimental surgeries without scientific support.
The goal behind the series
In dialogue with The voiceproducer Ashley Michel Hoban says that, like the entire team behind the series, she feels very excited to be able to expand this topic globally and realize that people like Christopher or Paolo may be committing crimes in clinics or hospitals. Any part of the world.
“Instead of jumping from state to state or hospital to hospital, as Christopher did, Paolo Macchiarini jumped from country to country. And it is even more difficult to track internationally when medicine goes wrong because obviously we do not have a global medical system,” acknowledges the American from the other side of Zoom.
The producer maintains that the first two stories of Dr Death They are connected to each other by that feeling of absolute power, superiority and egocentrism that the real characters had as health professionals.
“They are very different from each other. Christopher Duntsch was dealing with some addiction issues which in turn caused him other problems. But Paolo Macchiarini was actually a decent surgeon who unfortunately got carried away by the possibilities that his work was giving him and could not face reality,” he explains.
“Likewise, I always like to clarify that, for every Paolo Macchiarini, there are 100 good doctors working. What we are most excited to do as a franchise is provide patients with practical, on-the-ground information to help them be their best advocate. It is the most universal thing in the world, we all get sick and must go to the doctor. So I am proud to be able to work on this program because we try to provide real information for people to use,” she adds excitedly.
Édgar Ramírez and his achievements in Dr. Death
For his part, actor Édgar Ramírez explains that there are series based on real events whose characters have a moment of introspection and explain the reasons that led them to commit such crimes. Since Paolo Macchiarini never had that moment of light, it presented a double challenge for him to interpret it.
“My character never had that introspection and that was very interesting for me because it gave me the opportunity to live the fantasy life that Paolo had created for himself. It was an incredible challenge for me and I love Ashley (Michel Hoban) for that. I feel that it is one of the most interesting details that this series has. For me it was important not to judge my character because I am the one who is at his service,” he says in a press conference organized by Universal+.
Likewise, the actor (who is also a journalist specializing in politics) recognizes that, as such, the series is fiction and therefore “a reinvention of what was the real story.”
“It has no intention of being a fictionalized documentary about what the lives of these people were like. Still, the character Ashley composed was very convincing and she gave me everything I needed to build and understand the Paolo we created for the show,” she explains.
And then he adds: “I am a journalist, that is what I did before becoming an actor. I love to investigate and go as deep as I can when I take on a character, but in this case I felt that the character was so convincing in the script that I didn’t need to try to understand it, copy it or be inspired by the real Paolo Macchiarini. So, along with all this great team that we have, I wanted to just create our own journey.”
A love story, two great actors
Although this new installment of the series focuses on the victims of the Italian doctor, it also portrays the love story that Macchiarini lives with his ex-wife Benita Alexander (played by actress Mandy Moore), who is largely credited with the doctor’s fall She was the one who initiated the investigation against her because she distrusted her “miraculous” practices.
“This incredible love story gave us a kind of entry into medicine to help us understand it. Benita’s relationship with Paulo was almost an allegory for how he was able to maneuver through the medical system so easily. The first episodes focus more on the love story because for us it is a way to understand how he was able to manipulate people. It all comes back to the patients and that is the most important part of the story,” he explains.
In line with this, the producer points out that working with Édgar Ramírez and Mandy Moore was “incredible” because they both brought to the stage many details of their characters that were not pre-established in the script.
“Edgar was in my head from the beginning. When we met with director Jennifer Morrison, before we tried to convince the actor to do the show, he insisted that we were going to have to tell a three-dimensional story with Paolo. And that was really important because it’s not just seeing him as the bad guy. He is a man who crossed many lines and justified crossing those lines. That, to me, was at least a gray area that I think was worth distinguishing,” he explains.
“Mandy has such a presence. We needed to have someone who could live up to that presence. And she’s just amazing. She’s a movie star and has a real kindness and warmth inherent to her that I think helps you understand what she went through and how someone as smart and funny and clever as Benita could end up in this situation. It makes you realize that if it can happen to her, it can happen to anyone,” he adds.
What is the reason for the success of series based on real events?
The success of Dr Death It is part of the wave of productions about real stories that have been taking over cable and streaming platforms for some time. streaming.
For Ashley, this latent popularity is due, on the one hand, to the interest that people have in listening to and telling stories, and on the other, the opportunities that fiction has to narrate those stories of reality that “are terrifying.”
“I think it helps us find a sense of control over what seem like very uncontrollable moments and helps us dig deeper and have a catharsis over some stories that are terrifying. It helps us deal with it. And in the case of Dr DeathFortunately, we were able to offer real practical information for patients,” he reinforces.
To see
The first and second seasons of Dr Death are now available on demand on the Universal+ platform or on one of its five Flow channels.
