Dr Melissa McCarney is a Rehabilitation Medicine Physician who lives in Forster and is very active in the local community.

She completed her Bachelor of Medicine at the University of Newcastle in 1992 before returning to Sydney for training at RNSH. After moving to the area as part of a University Rural Scholarship, Dr McCarney fell in love with the community and stayed with her husband to raise a family.

Dr McCarney has 20 years’ experience in Surgical Assisting mainly in Orthopaedics, General Surgery, Urology, and Gynaecology. Orthopaedics has always been a special interest, and she has extensive experience in the field, as well as providing peri-operative and post-operative care of patients, particularly Joint Replacements and Trauma.

In 2017, Dr McCarney decided to pursue her passion for Rehabilitation Medicine, and completed her specialist training at Forster Private Hospital and Mayo Private Hospital under the excellent guidance of her mentor Professor Steven Faux. She worked at John Hunter Hospital, Newcastle in 2021 where she gained further training in Traumatic Brain Injury, Multi-trauma, Spinal Cord Injury and Amputee/Prosthetics.

Dr McCarney obtained Fellowship of the Australasian Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine of the Royal Australian College of Physicians in early 2023 and has set up practice locally in Taree and Forster as a Specialist Rehabilitation Medicine Physician.

She is passionate about the community and working with a multidisciplinary team to assist her patients to recover function from disability, return to independence, reach their goals, and obtain a meaningful quality of life.

Dr McCarney enjoys teaching registrars, junior doctors and medical students and has recently been appointed as a Conjoint senior lecturer of the University of Newcastle.

Her special interests include:

• Orthopaedics including joint replacement surgery.
• Trauma
• Reconditioning after medical and surgical illness
• Neurological including stroke, Parkinson’s disease, MND, Multiple Sclerosis.
• Spasticity Management including ultrasound guided Botulinum toxin injections.
• Post-operative Neurosurgical
• Cancer rehabilitation
• Chronic Pain, including back pain
• Musculoskeletal rehabilitation
• Cardiac and Pulmonary rehabilitation
• Geriatric rehabilitation
• Intellectual and Developmental disability including Cerebral Palsy and Spina Bifida
• Long Covid
• Amputee Rehabilitation
• Spinal Cord Injury
• Traumatic Brain Injury

Melissa is currently accepting referrals for Inpatient and Outpatient Rehabilitation at Mayo Private Hospital and Forster Private Hospital including consulting in both Forster and Mayo Specialist Centres.