Melanie Pratt

Dr. Melanie Pratt was born in Manitoba, Canada in 1953. She attended the University of Ottawa for her undergraduate studies and medical school from 1971-1977.
She completed a rotating internship at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Toronto. She then travelled across Canada for a year doing general practice locums in New Brunswick, Ontario and British Columbia. Prior to specialising in dermatology, she returned to Toronto to complete one year in internal medicine at Wellesley Hospital. She then returned to Ottawa to complete her residency in dermatology from 1980-1983.
During her final year of residency, she spent time in Minneapolis, Minnesota to study under Dr. Goltz and also spent three months at St. John’s Hospital for Disease of the Skin in London, England to study under Dr. Etain Cronin and Dr. Charles Calnan. It was during this elective that her interest in contact dermatitis was nurtured and it has been her primary focus since that time.
Dr. Pratt is the former President of American Contact Dermatitis Society (ACDS).
Along with Dr. Denis Sasseville, she founded the Canadian Contact Dermatitis Group which meets annually at the Canadian Dermatology Association meeting and runs a Contact Dermatitis Forum.
Dr. Pratt is an invited member of NACDG (North American Contact Dermatitis Research Group) and an invited member of ICDRG (International Contact Dermatitis Research Group).
Dr. Pratt works as a full-time academic Professor of Dermatology at the Ottawa Hospital. She has been Director of the Ottawa Hospital Contact Dermatitis Clinic since 1986 where she assesses approximately 800 cases of contact dermatitis annually.
Dr. Pratt is an adjunct member of the Occupational Disease Specialty Program satellite adjunct unit in Ottawa, a part of the WSIB Investigative Unit centered at St. Michaels Hospital in Toronto.
Dr. Pratt is the recipient of the 2020 Canadian Dermatology Association Lifetime Achievement Award, has authored 135 publications and is a frequent lecturer nationally and internationally in the field of contact dermatitis. She also has an interest in systemic dermatologic therapy for psoriasis, eczematous disease, immunobullous and collagen vascular diseases.
Dr Pratt resides in Ottawa, Ontario, and is the mother of three grown children and grandmother of one.