About Me

Hi, my name is Raghu Tadikamalla. Most people call me Dr. T… sooo much easier. I am a full-time cardiologist, spending my days treating people with heart problems. Some of these people are really sick, and I love helping them. But my real passion is disease prevention. Unfortunately, not enough people go to cardiologists to talk about prevention (and even if they wanted to, there probably aren’t enough cardiologists to go around). That’s the main reason I am starting this blog.

This blog is an effort to reach more people, people like you, who want to live healthier lives (and avoid seeing me someday in the hospital). Maybe your doctor told you have high blood pressure, or high cholesterol. Maybe you are overweight. Maybe you have a family history of heart disease. Maybe you are perfectly healthy, but want to make sure you stay that way. Regardless, we can all do more to eat better, exercise better, and prevent disease. In effect, what I’m trying to do here is put myself out of business.

Outside of work, I’m kind of a regular guy. I have a wife, two kids, a dog, and a house in the suburbs. Sometimes, I struggle with the same things my patients do. Some days I’m tired when I get home and don’t feel like exercising. If I haven’t worked out in a few days, I have difficulty getting back into it. I have a horrible sweet tooth – my wife used to call me the “cookie monster.” Even worse, I’ve never really liked vegetables. I believe I can overcome these challenges, and I think you can too. I want this blog to be a journey we take together, with a destination of healthier, happier lives.

Fortunately, I do enjoy exercising a great deal. I feel that this dovetails nicely with my professional interest in fitness. I used to be a halfway decent Ultimate Frisbee player. I started playing in high school, and played competitively in college and beyond. I stopped playing Ultimate about 10 years ago because of knee and ankle problems. To stay in shape, I did a lot of weightlifting. Ironically, I never enjoyed doing cardio, but I found that weights were good at keeping me somewhat aerobically fit as well as lean and strong.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to lift as much for the last few years because of shoulder problems, and my fitness level had fallen. Then, I got a free registration for a 5k race, and I signed up without really thinking about it. A few weeks later I thought, “Oh no, I guess this means I have to run.” So, I started jogging, which I had only done grudgingly in the past to stay in shape for playing Ultimate. I made it as much of a mental exercise as physical, reading a lot about training techniques and exercise physiology. I always try to be a student of everything I do. I actually started to enjoy running, which I hadn’t expected. Then in September 2018, I ran my first race since high school, and I have continued to train since then.

I have also always enjoyed cooking and eating, and this pairs well with my interest in nutrition. My tastes have definitely changed over the years to incorporate a healthier lifestyle, and I look forward to telling you about that in a number of blog posts. I don’t cook as much anymore. My wife is a tremendous chef (almost as good as me 😉), and she handles a lot of the food preparation in the house. She is going to be a big part of this blog. Not just by posting recipes and exercise tips, but by holding in check my natural nerd tendencies (I like both Star Wars and Star Trek) and preventing me from boring you with the subtleties of biochemistry, human physiology, etc. She has her own blog as well, which has lots of tips on healthy eating and exercise.

Welcome to PagingDoctorT! I hope you enjoy our journey.