One of the pioneers in IVF and one of the founding partners of RPMG, Dr. David Meldrum, has retired. His remarkable contributions to the specialty of reproductive endocrinology and RPMG were celebrated at a reception on March 9th.
Doctors from RPMG as well as Gautam Chaudhuri, MD, PhD, Chairman of the Department of Obstetetrics and Gynecology at the UCLA School of Medicine, spoke about Dr. Meldrum’s numerous accomplishments. Dr. Meldrum has enhanced the lives of countless men and women by helping them achieve the dream of creating their families through his brilliant clinical and scientific contributions.
Dr. Meldrum graduated at the top of his class from McGill Medical School and developed an interest in infertility resulting from his wife Claudia’s own difficulty conceiving. This led him in the direction of treating patients with infertility, as well as resulting in the birth of the Meldrum quadruplets two of whom attended the reception along with Claudia. A sabbatical from ULCA in Australia in 1982 resulted in his learning the techniques of IVF.
Upon returning to UCLA he set up the UCLA IVF program. In 1986 he moved his program to Redondo Beach where it evolved into the Center For Advanced Reproductive Care, now Reproductive Partners. His early work culminated in the first pregnancy resulting from an ultrasound-guided egg retrieval in the United States. Dr. Meldrum is also a clinical professor at UCLA, a prolific author of over one hundred scholarly articles and papers, a former president of the Society For Assisted Reproductive Technology and Pacific Coast Fertility Society and serves on the editorial boards of the medical journals, “Fertility and
Sterility,” “Journal of Assisted Reproduction and Genetics” and “Assisted Reproduction Reviews.”
He will continue as a consultant to RPMG in La Jolla as well as serving as an editor of Fertility and Sterility and directing the UCLA annual IVF meeting in Santa Barbara which he has done for over twenty years.
All attending the reception wished Dr. Meldrum and Claudia a long and rewarding retirement. For more information on Dr. Meldum please visit his personal website.