Clinician Investigator, Inflammation & Chronic Disease
Ottawa Hospital Research Institute

My research interests center around pneumonia and its immediate and long-term consequences on cardiovascular risk. My investigations have demonstrated that pneumonia substantially increases the risk of major cardiovascular events (myocardial infarction, stroke and heart failure) not only in the short-term but also in the long-term post-infection. This novel association represents an opportunity for improving the short and long-term outcomes of patients with pneumonia (the leading single diagnosis responsible for hospitalization in North America) and reduce the burden of cardiovascular diseases (the number one cause of disease and death worldwide) in our population.

My current projects are investigating the mechanisms by which pneumonia increases cardiovascular risk. The goal is the design, testing, and eventual implementation of mechanistically-informed interventions to reduce cardiovascular disease  after pneumonia.

I did medical school at "Universidad Católica de Santa María" in Arequipa, Peru, my hometown. Also in Arequipa, I completed a first Internal Medicine residency in 2002. I then moved to Miami in 2003 for a second Internal Medicine residency at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine as part of the William J. Harrington Programs for Latin America and the Caribbean. In 2006, I moved to Houston for my 3-year Infectious Diseases Fellowship at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM). I also completed a Masters degree in Clinical Investigation from the BCM Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences with the thesis “The Association between Community Acquired Pneumonia and Acute Coronary Syndromes” under the supervision of Prof. Daniel M. Musher. I was fortunately recruited to The Ottawa Hospital and University of Ottawa in October of 2009. I became Associate Scientist of the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute in early 2010.

Corrales-Medina, V.F., Musher, D.M., Shachkina, S., Chirinos, J.A. Acute pneumonia and the cardiovascular system. The Lancet. 381:496-505. 2013 

Corrales-Medina, V.F., Musher, D.M., Wells, G.A., Chirinos, J.A., Chen, L., Fine, M.J. Cardiac Complications in Patients with Community Acquired Pneumonia: Incidence, Timing, Risk Factors, and Association with Short-term Mortality. Circulation. 125:773-81. 2012 

Corrales-Medina, V.F., Suh, K.N., Rose, G., Chirinos, J.A., Doucette, S., Fergusson, D.A. Cardiac Complications in Patients with Community-Acquired Pneumonia: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Observational Studies. Public Library of Science (PLoS) Medicine 8:e1001048. 2011 

Corrales-Medina, V.F., Madjid, M., Musher,D.M. The Role of Acute Infection in Triggering Acute Coronary Syndromes. The Lancet Infectious Diseases. 10:83-92. 2010 

Corrales-Medina, V.F., Serpa, J.A., Bozkurt, B., Giordano, T.P., Madjid, M., Tweardy, D.J., Musher, D.M. Acute Bacterial Pneumonia is Associated with the Occurrence of Acute Coronary Syndromes. Medicine (Baltimore). 88:154-159. 2009

Pneumonia; Vascular, heart and metabolic disease