Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Dr. Ronald Melzack – The king of (understanding) pain

Dr. Ronald Melzack is an emeritus professor of psychology at McGill who revolutionized the study and treatment of pain. His historic partnership with Dr. Patrick Wall of MIT led to the 1985 publication of the Gate Control Theory of Pain, which overturned the then-accepted view of pain as a primitive and static danger warning system. Instead, Melzack and Wall argued that psychological factors and environment play a large role, and that pain is subjective and ultimately at the mercy of the brain. Widely lionized for his breakthroughs, Melzack has been honoured with a Killam Prize, is an Officer of the Order of Canada and l’Ordre du Québec and was recently inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame.

Born in 1929 in a working-class district of Montreal, Melzack was the only member of his family to attend university. He studied psychology at McGill under the great Dr. Donald Hebb, and obtained his PhD in 1954. After postdoctoral stints at the University of Oregon and MIT, Melzack returned to McGill as a professor in the early 1960s and was instrumental in the establishment of the McGill Pain Clinic, first at the Royal Victoria Hospital and later at the Montreal General. He also developed one of the most powerful pain research tools in use today: the McGill Pain Questionnaire, which allows patients to precisely pinpoint the type and degree of pain they are experiencing. The questionnaire has since been translated into 20 languages and is accepted as a standard worldwide.

The McGill Reporter interviewed Dr. Melzack at his office in the Stewart Biology Building a few days after the Nov. 10 announcement of his induction into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame.

More ...

http://reporter.mcgill.ca/2008/11/dr-ronald-melzack-%E2%80%93-professor-emeritus-in-psychology/