Name Mathew Kalarickal | ||
Born January 6, 1948 (age 76) ( 1948-01-06 ) Kerala, India Occupation Interventional cardiologist Awards Padmashri
Dr. B. C. Roy Award
Doctor of Science Award | ||
Mathew Samuel Kalarickal is an Indian cardiologist widely known as the father of angioplasty in India. He specializes in coronary angioplasty, carotid stenting, coronary stenting and rotablator athrectomy.
Contents
Early years
Kalarickal was born on 6 January 1948 in Kottayam, Kerala. He studied till class 12 at Union Christian College, Aluva. Subsequently, he got his MBBS degree from Government Medical College, Kottayam in 1974, MD from Stanley Medical College, Chennai in 1978 and DM in 1981 from Madras Medical College, Chennai.
Career
After starting his career in India, Kalarickal moved to Jakarta to join Medistra Hospital and later to Oman where he worked as cardiologist at Royal Hospital, Muscat. He continued his practice in the United States only to return to India in 1985 after training there under Andreas Gruentzig, who is known as the father of coronary angioplasty and joined Apollo Hospitals at Chennai.
Kalarickal is credited with performing over 8,000 Angioplasties. He is the first Indian Cardiologist to initiate various new techniques in Angioplasty such as the usage of Drug-eluting bio-absorbable stents. This new type of stent, dissimilar to a metallic stent, is metabolized slowly by the body and then absolutely absorbed over the certain period of time leaving behind a cured natural vessel, unlike in earlier methods where a metal stent is made to clear clog in arteries of patients.
He has also trained surgeons in angioplasty programme in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the United Arab Emirates, Abu Dhabi, Muscat, Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia.
He presently resides in Chennai, India and practices at Apollo Hospitals, Chennai.
Positions held
Kalarickal is at present the Director, Interventional Cardiology and Cardiac Catheterisation Laboratories, Apollo Hospitals, Chennai. He is also a visiting Interventional Cardiologist at hospitals in different parts of India. He is the founder-convenor of the National Angioplasty Registry of India, which is a forum for interventional cardiologists of the country to learn from each other, streamline the standard of procedure and maintain international standards.
Kalarickal is also involved with Shree Pacetronix Limited, in Pithambur, Madhya Pradesh manufacturers of cardiac pacemakers. Kalarickal was the President, Asian-Pacific Society of Interventional Cardiology, from 1995 to 1997 and Chairman of Interventional Cardiology, Asian-Pacific Society of Cardiology, from 1995 to 1999.