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Family and friends describe Texas cardiologist Suresh Gadasalli who was killed by his patient and business associate on June 12, as a “good and caring” person who appreciated good Indian food and had a good taste in art. Gadasalli was shot at the Healthy Heart Center in Odessa, Texas by his patient and business associate, Ayyasamy Thangam, who then killed himself. The 60-year-old shot the 53-year-old Gadasalli multiple times on June 12 afternoon, according to an Odessa Police Department press release. Gadasalli body was found in the exam room.
Gadasalli and Thangam lived a couple streets away from each other, but other ties between the two have not been made public. Thangam’s wife, Shanthi, has a psychiatry practice a few blocks from Gadasalli’s heart center, OAOnline reported.
Gadasalli’s uncle Rangaesh Gadasalli told the website that his nephew’s funeral was being held privately at the Martinez Chapel and Cemetery. Rangaesh Gadasalli said he doesn’t know what provoked Thangam, business manager for Happy Hearts Psychiatry, to commit the act nor does he know about the ongoing investigation. “He was a successful doctor,” he said of his nephew. “I was proud of him all these years.”
Gadasalli was in the Odessa area since 1993, and became prominent by performing cutting-edge heart surgeries, helping open Alliance Hospital before it was purchased by Odessa Regional Medical Center in 2007. He reportedly performed the world’s first simultaneous hybrid revascularization, and he was nominated as “Super Doctor” by the Texas Monthly Magazine in 2008, it said. He was named “Community Statesman” in 1997 by the Heritage of Odessa Foundation.
Although Gadasalli received praises for his engagement in the community, scandals rocked his career. An Odessa family filed a lawsuit against him in 2010, accusing him of fatally puncturing an elderly woman’s artery while he attempted to place a stent in it. The Texas Medical Board considered an application to suspend temporally Gadasalli’s medical license, but after hearing testimony, a disciplinary panel decided not to suspend it, OAOnline reported.
His lawyer James K. McClendon rejected the notion Gadasalli was alerted to any complication during the procedure, saying that three other people in the room “testified or proved sworn testimony” that they didn’t notice any complication during the procedure. He was however fined $10,000 and required to take five hours of continuing medical education and pass the medical jurisprudence examination.
Two years later a FBI investigation scrutinized the Healthy Heart Center after Gadasalli was accused of violating federal law in structuring transactions to avoid reporting requirements, according to previous reports. Court reports stated the case closed in January 2014.
The post Business Associate Murders Texas Cardiologist, Kills Himself appeared first on News India Times.
