Pioneer of angioplasty in India, Dr Samuel Mathew Kalarickal dies: Why his legacy will live on in young cardiologists across countries

He returned to India in 1985 and started performing angioplasties. While the procedure may have become very common now, at the time, the only option for patients with heart disease was medical management or an open heart bypass surgery. “Very few doctors in the world achieve the pinnacle in a single procedure and he was one of them. He believed in teaching the procedure so that cardiologists from across the country and even abroad could perform it,” said Dr Ajit Mullasari, director of cardiology at Madras Medical Mission. He himself was one of the first to train in the procedure under Dr Kalarickal and later became his colleague, friend and cardiologist.

Dr Kalarickal’s legacy lives on in the thousands of cardiologists not just from India but also from neighbouring countries such as Sri Lanka, Maldives, Egypt, Bangladesh, and Fiji among others. “He could have received a very lucrative package in the US but he wanted to give back to the country. And, people may say that he worked in a private hospital, but the generations he trained to do the procedure made it accessible across the country,” said Dr Mohammed Najeeb Osman, medical director of cardiovascular services, University Hospitals Geneva Medical Centre. He first met Dr Kalarickal as a resident at a medical conference and a year later when his father needed an angioplasty, he chose to train under Dr Kalarickal.

He was also an innovator and held patents for some devices that are needed in the procedure. “I have never seen anyone perform a rotablation angioplasty — a procedure that uses a drill to break the calcified plaques in the heart — with the finesse that he did. He taught us that the procedure was as much an art as a science,” said Dr Mullasari.

Recalling the time when Dr Kalarickal himself needed the procedure he had taught to many, Dr Mallusari says, “I remember he called me from Malaysia and said that he was about to board a flight. He told me he was experiencing chest pain but he did not want to get treated in Malaysia. While undergoing the procedure, he kept directing me. He was among the most important cardiologists in any conference around the world. And the India Live programme that was started by him continues to be one of the most well-attended interventional cardiology conferences in the world,” he says.

Dr Kalarickal was loved by his patients, some of whom paid tributes, saying they would not be able to forget his impact on their lives. And as passionate he was about his work, he was also a family man. He was given the highest award for physicians, the Dr BC Roy Award, in 1996 and the Padma Shri in 2000.