Vinay Reddy

Dr. Vinay N. Reddy died Thursday, October 13, 2022, at his home. He was born October 11, 1956, in New York, NY the son of Venkat and Alvira (de Mello) Reddy.

Proverbs 16:32 & 14:29

Vinay’s life was about love, community, and helping and working with others to bring goodness into the world.  These values and approach to life started in a loving home, nurtured and focused at Roeper School (MI), and then strengthened and practiced at MIT, SLU, U of M and throughout his time teaching and working as a pediatrician and eating disorder specialist.  As a champion for better care for individuals with eating disorders he helped found SMEDA, Southwest Michigan Eating Disorder Association with the hope of bringing team-based treatment of eating disorders to the southwestern part of MI.  He had taught residents at Beaumont Hospital and at the now WMU Unified Clinics.  Vinay’s trailblazing approach included creating and maintaining Dr. Reddy’s Pediatric Office on the Web (now retired) when the concept of on-line medical support was still a hatchling.  He was already fascinated and immersed in the concept of machines and how they operated as a kindergartener and in high school assisted in creating and teaching a class on how to build and program computers.  While a medical student at SLU, he wrote a comprehensive book on how medical equipment works and helped develop and teach a class on the subject.  His final task was to finally complete an updated version of that book (unpublished) going from analog to the new digital world of medicine.  However, even after retiring from medicine he continued to enjoy teaching and supporting the well-being of children working at his wife’s side spending his summers in Garezers’ silversmith shop.

Vinay was preceded in death by his parents and three cats, Sniff, CatScan, and Catastrophe. On April 2, 2011, Vinay married Laura Smidchens, who survives. Also surviving are his sister, Marlita Reddy-Hjelmfelt and her husband Eric Hjelmfelt, SIL Laila Kalnins and her husband Valdis Kalnins, BIL Eriks Smidchens, FIL Uldis Smidchens, his nephews, Roberts and Viktors and nieces, Magdalena, Sabine, and Anna and cats, Sniffy and Cataract.

A service to honor Vinay will be held at noon Saturday, October 29, 2022, at Kalamazoo Latvian Evangelical Lutheran United Church, 100 Cherry Hill St, Kalamazoo MI 49006. Vinay’s family will begin greeting guests at 11am and following the service at the church. In lieu of flowers, please consider a gift in Vinay’s memory to Garezers, Inc., The Roeper School or Doctors Without Borders.