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Valley cardiologist, OSHP inspector on adventure to India
Mutual admiration takes Valley cardiologist, OSHP inspector on an adventure to India
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AWARD WINNER: Dr. Chakri Yarlagadda, right, is in his native India this week to receive the Hind Rattan (Jewel of India) Award given annually to nonresident Indians in recognition of their services, achievements and contributions in their fields. Dr. Yarlagadda, a cardiologist and vice president of the Ohio Heart Institute here, is accompanied on the trip by his friend Stephen Gerish, left, of Canfield, a load-limit inspector for the Ohio State Highway Patrol.
By WILLIAM K. ALCORN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN — A chance meeting in 2000 brought together Dr. Chakri Yarlagadda and Stephen Gerish — a meeting that formed a friendship that resulted in an adventure of a lifetime for Gerish.
Dr. Yarlagadda was in Canfield shopping for a home on Gerish’s street 10 years ago. Gerish noticed Dr. Yarlagadda looking at a house and recommended he rent rather than buy until he better knew the community, and he even drove the doctor and his family around.
On that tour, they found they had a mutual interest — motorcycles, really fast motorcycles.
Later, Dr. Yarlagadda developed an interest in Gerish’s remote-controlled model- airplane hobby, cementing the friendship between the heart doctor and the Ohio State Highway Patrol load-limit inspector.
“We’re complete opposites. I’m outgoing, he’s quiet,” Gerish said of Dr. Yarlagadda.
But this week, Dr. Yarlagadda, a cardiologist with the Ohio Heart Institute in Youngstown, which he joined in 2000, is the center of attention.
He is among some 30 India nonresidents selected to receive the prestigious Hind Rattan Award from his native land. The award recognizes outstanding services, achievements and contributions in the recipients’ respective fields.
Dr. Yarlagadda is vice president of the Ohio Heart Institute, where he also is radiation safety officer in the nuclear cardiology laboratory and medical director of the echocardiography laboratory.
Hind Rattan, which means Jewel of India, is presented annually to nonresident Indians and people of Indian origin by the Non-Resident Indian Society of India around India’s Republic Day, which was Tuesday.
Dr. Yarlagadda, 43, was to have received the award Monday in New Delhi, and he invited Gerish, 60, to accompany him.
Gerish called the India trip their latest adventure.
“I owe the guy,” Gerish said of Dr. Yarlagadda.
“I was among 100 from around the country invited to the ‘Top Gun’ fly-in for remote-controlled aircraft in 2004 in Lakeland, Fla. But, when I got there, I found out I needed a crew chief or I couldn’t participate. So, I invited Chakri down,” Gerish said.
“He took a week off to come to be my crew chief. So, when he invited me on an adventure with him, I’m thinking Cincinnati or someplace like that, and said yes. Then I find out we’re going to India,” Gerish said, with a laugh.
Interviewed before they left for India, Dr. Yarlagadda, a naturalized U.S. citizen, said it is a great honor to receive the award. It is a way for people to keep in contact with the motherland, he said.
The doctor annually returns to India to visit family, including his father, Prabhakara Ramamurty, sister, Tulasi, and brother, Siva Prasad.
Dr. Yarlagadda, who specializes in permanent heart-pacemaker implants and stress and transesophageal echocardiography, received his medical training at Siddhartha Medical College, Magarjuna University, in India. He came to the U.S. in 1992 and completed his internal-medicine residency and cardiology fellowship at East Tennessee State University, where he worked several years, before coming to Youngstown in 2000.
Dr. Yarlagadda is an assistant professor of internal medicine at Northeastern Ohio Universities Colleges of Medicine and Pharmacy in Rootstown and is participating in several national clinical trials.
One of the clinical trials involved wireless pacemakers that enable physicians to monitor patients from their homes over the Internet. The trial studied the performance of the covering, or insulation, of wires that lead from the pacemaker to the heart. Lead wires are the leading cause of failure of artificial pacemakers, he said.
The advantages of the wireless pacemaker include quicker discovery of problems with the patient’s heart or artificial pacemaker, leading to quicker treatment, as opposed to waiting for a regularly scheduled office visit to discover the problem. It also cuts down on the number of office calls, Dr. Yarlagadda said.
The first wireless artificial pacemaker was implanted in the United States in August 2009 at St. Francis Hospital in Roslyn, N.Y. Dr. Yarlagadda did the first wireless-pacemaker implant in Trumbull County in September 2009 at St. Joseph Health Center in Warren, where he is director of noninvasive cardiology.
An artificial pacemaker is a medical device which uses electrical impulses, delivered by electrodes, to contract the muscles of the heart and regulate its beat. The heartbeat rate is usually 60 beats per minute, Dr. Yarlagadda said.
Gerish has been with the highway patrol’s load-limit unit for nine years. He works at the scales on Interstate 80 between Hubbard and Girard.
Gerish, who attended Youngstown State University for a year, worked for Republic Steel immediately after graduating in 1969 from Struthers High School and then at U.S. Steel as a boiler operator.
After U.S. Steel closed, he worked as a boiler operator at the former Woodside Receiving Hospital in Youngstown until it closed and then at Massillon State Hospital. He also has taught boiler operation in the adult continuing-education program at the Mahoning County Career and Technical Center.
He and his wife, Shelia, live in Canfield. His children are Cherilyn Robbs and Lindsay Brant, both of Hubbard, and Stephen C. Gerish of North Jackson.
Gerish, who formed the Nighthawks Remote Control Club in North Jackson, and Dr. Yarlagadda, organized the remote-controlled aircraft portion of the Thunder Over the Valley Air Show last summer at the Youngstown Air Reserve Station in Vienna. The show featured the Air Force’s Thunderbirds and the Army’s Golden Parachute unit.
“What a wonderful experience. They wanted the same quality in the remote-aircraft display as they had with the Thunderbirds. It was the hardest job I ever liked. We hope to be invited back again for their next air show,” Gerish said.
The pulse-raising, really fast motorcycles that brought Gerish and Dr. Yarlagadda together in the first place are, for the doctor at least, a thing of the past.
Those adventures for Dr. Yarlagadda ended when his son, Vishnu, was born two years ago. He said his wife, Sohini, worried about the high-risk hobby.
“It’s been a great ride,” Gerish said of his friendship with Dr. Yarlagadda. “I’m looking forward to our next adventure.”
alcorn@vindy.com