Talented in the office, but Lendel also loves his outdoors time.

Cardiologist Vasili Lendel, MD, makes bold mark in Arkansas

When cardiologist Bruce Murphy, MD, prepared to retire this year, he didn’t leave his medical practice without a solid plan for succession. Vasili Lendel, MD, was hand-picked to take over his practice on Aug. 15.

“He’s a talented, American-trained, interventional cardiologist who shares many of my views on how cardiology should be practiced,” Murphy told his patients.

Lendel’s journey to the Arkansas Heart Hospital began in Siberia, where he was one of five children born to Antoniy and Tamila, a professional artist. His older brother, Eugene, was his “best baby sitter” and confidant, while a younger sister, Maria, became “the best cook in the family.”

“All of my life, my parents collected books with a big family library, which was a useful thing to have during long winter months,” said Lendel. “Several prominent Russian writers like Chekhov and Bulgakov were physicians; they mostly influenced me to choose the path to become a physician myself.”

At the age of 15, Lendel entered a program that combined high school with a nursing degree track, and during those years he worked as a nursing assistant in a local emergency room. After graduating from nursing school with honors, he entered a Russian medical school in Tyumen, a city in western Siberia that was established by the Russians 400 years ago in their quest to reach the Pacific.

Lendel’s experience in Russia would inspire him to study Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin, a Russian Orthodox Christian whom many have called alternatively a mystic, faith healer, prophet and the “Mad Monk.” Reportedly, Rasputin helped to discredit the czarist government, leading to the fall of the Romanov dynasty in 1917.  Lendel completed extensive research, interviewed Rasputin’s descendents and hypothesized on sources of his influence on the czar’s family in “The Life and Healing Power of Rasputin.”

At medical school, Lendel met his wife, Irina, an endocrinologist, and received an academic-based scholarship to study medicine at the Dalhousie Medical School in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada with two conditions: they would have to start from year one and learn English. 

“None of us spoke English,” he said. “We had less than half a year to learn the language.”

Undaunted by the challenge, Lendel decided to make learning a second language fun.

“Most of my English I learned from watching Seinfeld and the Simpsons,” joked Lendel, who moved to Canada in 2000. “It was the only time of my life when watching television for eight hours a day was considered work.”

After completing medical school at Dalhousie University, where he was accepted into the prestigious Alpha Omega Alpha medical society, Lendel and his wife “matched” to Penn State for internal medicine, where he was captivated by the ever changing and dynamic nature of cardiology during a time when the field of interventional cardiology exploded. At Penn State’s Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, he was a chief cardiology fellow and interventional cardiology fellow.

From Penn State, Lendel moved his family to Southaven, Miss., and worked on staff for the Memphis Heart Clinic for four years. Then he learned about the Arkansas Heart Hospital and its stellar reputation as a leader in the field of cardiovascular care.

“I felt honored to receive an invitation to join the group with a particular interest in peripheral arterial disease,” he said. “I feel privileged to help develop and evaluate tools to cross total chronic occlusions. We actively participate in trials using new atherectomy devices and are actively working to establish a transcatheter aortic valve implantation program.”

Lendel enjoys traveling to satellite clinic locations in Camden and Danville to participate in the care of Arkansans. Along the way, it’s not uncommon for him to drop by nursing homes and hospitals as a volunteer.

“After working eight years through medical school and 10 years in post graduate training, it’s difficult to see myself as anything but a physician. However, I do enjoy cooking—creating unique combination of flavors—and I also often thought that if I were not a physician, I would probably enjoy being a chef,” said Lendel, who often has Russian folk music, classical music, and the blues playing in the background.

When he’s off call, he heads outdoors with his wife and two daughters, Anastasia, 13, and 4-year-old Elizabeth, to kayak, fish, hike, play soccer, run or garden. With a passion for roses, he aspires to have a park-like garden and develop a new type of rose.

Lendel also finds time for an unusual hobby: collecting wild mushrooms.

“Most people would be surprised to learn that I like to hunt for wild mushrooms,” he said. “Finding mushrooms doesn’t sound like an exciting hobby. However, there’s a reason why people call it ‘silent hunting,’ because it’s a challenge to see a mushroom, especially when other people have missed it. There’s an interesting rule in finding mushrooms that if you’re sure the mushroom is good for 99.9 percent, you leave it alone.”

An avid reader, Lendel is a font of information on history, philosophy, and international politics.

Rachelle Lamphere, director of marketing for Arkansas Heart Hospital, said Lendel’s uniqueness makes it “an absolute pleasure to work with him.”

“He’s not only technically very skilled, but he’s extremely personable and professional,” she said. “Dr. Lendel is very good at listening to his patients, and is a leader in his field.  He genuinely possesses the qualities of empathy and compassion. We’re so excited to have him here as a part of the Arkansas Heart Hospital family.”

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