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Melanie McCallum, MBChB

Aberdeen University, Glasgow University (UK)

Dr McCallum has been a Board Certified Practicing Doctor for 31 years, and continues to practice clinically.

With a medical career which has spanned more than 3 decades she has qualified as a family physician, addiction psychiatrist, disability specialist and continues to work for the UK Government as a medico- legal adviser for criminal injuries.

Whilst enjoying working directly with individual patients Dr McCallum has always recognized the importance of aiming to improve population health on a larger scale, she studied public health at Glasgow University and is an International public health practitioner. She is passionate about making an impact, effecting the future from a healthcare perspective and making the world healthier for subsequent generations, using evidence- based approaches.

Dr McCallum considers education as vital tool for improving health and wellbeing and has taught in a wide range of situations ranging from teaching medical students at Glasgow University on how to improve their communication skills and junior psychiatrists how best to treat PTSD to  judges on how best to work with trauma survivors and victims of crime.

She is a careers adviser for school age children and a volunteer for the red cross.

A particular favorite teaching highlight was developing and opening a teaching kitchen in an area of high deprivation as part of a public health partnership and teaching people of all ages how to cook properly from scratch, with locally grown produce.

Dr McCallum believes good communication is essential to any learning process and prides herself in her skills which have been developed over many years of sharing and exchanging with her patients.  She thoroughly agrees with Albert Einstein’s philosophy that :

“Most of the fundamental ideas of science are essentially simple, and may, as a rule, be expressed in a language comprehensible to everyone.”

Courses taught at Umbra