Dr Melia is a Consultant Physician and Gastroenterologist with extensive experience in Hepatology as well. He qualified at NUI (Galway) and trained as a young doctor in Galway and Dublin and  was a registrar/lecturer on Professor Roger Williams’ team on the King’s Liver Unit for five years in the early 1980s.

His clinical research was particularly in portal hypertension and hepatobiliary tumour. He also worked at the Westminster Hospital and in the British Army. He has been a consultant since May 1989, initially in the British Army, mainly at the Queen Elizabeth Military Hospital, Woolwich until 1995, where he was Clinical Tutor, later the Army Senior Clinical Tutor, and then at the Royal Hospital Haslar.

He acquired experience in Tropical Medicine working for two years at BMH  Hong Kong, where he was also a Lecturer in Medicine in The Chinese University of Hong Kong. He was appointed an NHS Consultant at the Dartford & Gravesham NHS Trust in Spring 1997. He has been Clinical Director of Adult Medicine, Trust Cancer Lead, Trust Upper GI Cancer Lead and Kent & Medway TSSG Clinical Lead during his time at Dartford & Gravesham.  He was Lead Consultant for hepatitis B & C until retiring from full-time work within the King’s-based Network Hepatitis C Team.

He retired from full time practice in September 2021 but has continued to work as an NHS Consultant, especially in the endoscopy setting, since then on both the Darent Valley Hospital and the Queen Mary’s Hospital Sidcup sites.

He is an Endoscopy Trainer, currently training both nurse endoscopists and surgical registrars. He has worked in the private sector at The Blackheath Hospital since 1990, Fawkham Manor Hospital and Chelsfield Park Hospital.  He contributes to the monthly GI MDM at The Blackheath Hospital and is on the Endoscopy Users Group there and at Chelsfield Park Hospital.

He has worked with GPs in North West Kent and South East London particularly but his private practice referrals come from a much wider radius. He sees patients across the full spectrum of gastrointestinal (GI) and hepatobiliary disease, offering upper and lower GI endoscopy. His GI practice includes gastro-oesophageal disease, coeliac disease, inflammatory bowel disease, the investigation of dyspepsia and changes in bowel habit. His liver disease practice includes the investigation of abnormal liver blood tests and scan results, autoimmune liver disease and hepatitis (A,B,C & E) as well as liver, biliary and pancreatic (HPB) tumours.

He is a member of the British Medical Association (BMA), the British Society of Gastroenterology (BSG) and the European Association for the Study of Liver Disease (EASL). He is a member of the West Kent Medico-Chirurgical Society. He has published over 100 papers, mainly in Liver Disease, contributing chapters on hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) to textbooks and other reviews in collaboration with the late Professor Williams and has presented at BSG and EASL Annual Meetings.

He has broad interests outside medicine and is a member of The Sandhurst Association and the Irish Literary Society and is widely read, particularly in Irish literature and history, including military history. He is an Irish speaker and deeply into Irish traditional music and song. He has been a long-distance runner all his life and is a huge fan of rugby, mainly Irish and Connacht Rugby, Gaelic Games and track athletics.

• Gastroenterology
• Gastrointestinal Endoscopy
• Hepatology

• British Society of Gastroenterology (BSG)
• American Association for the study of Liver Disease (AASLD)
• British Medical Association (BMA)
• British Society of Gastroenterology (BSG)
• European Association for the Study of Liver Disease (EASL)
• West Kent Medico-Chirurgical Society