Information for Our Community

Whether you are part of our community or are interested in joining us, we welcome you to Washington University School of Medicine.

close  


Richard W. McCallum, MBBS, HS ’72

Richard W. McCallum, MBBS, FACP, FRACP (Australia), FACG, AGAF, is recognized internationally as a premier thought leader in the field of neurogastroenterology and gastrointestinal motility. He is professor and founding chair of the Department of Internal Medicine at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center and chief of its Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition. He is also director of the Center for Neurogastroenterology and GI Motility.

McCallum pioneered the use of gastric electrical stimulation to treat gastroparesis, instigating a new direction of treatment for patients with nausea and vomiting. He is also a central figure in clinical research trials studying all the major prokinetics—drugs that enhance gastrointestinal motility—as well as antiemetics— agents working in the brain to block nausea. His scientific publications in peer-reviewed journals exceed 450, and he has edited more than a dozen scientific textbooks. He holds five patents.

McCallum is a native of Brisbane, Australia and earned his bachelor’s and medical degrees from the University of Queensland. After interning at the New Orleans Charity Hospital (LSU) in 1970, he completed his residency at Barnes-Jewish Hospital. His fellowship training in gastroenterology was at Wadsworth Veterans Hospital/University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he later joined the UCLA faculty. He then served on the faculty of Yale School of Medicine and the West Haven Veterans Administration Hospital from 1976 until 1985, when he was appointed gastroenterology division chief and fellowship program director at the University of Virginia. In 1996, he became the chief of gastroenterology and hepatology at the University of Kansas as well as director of the Center for GI Nerve and Muscle Function and GI Motility. He was recruited as the founding chair of the Department of Medicine to start a new medical school, the Paul L. Foster School of Medicine at Texas Tech University Medical Center in El Paso, Texas, in 2009. The fellows and faculty he has mentored during his career have gone on to academic positions at university medical centers both in this country and around the world.

McCallum has held several important leadership roles at the American College of Gastroenterology, the American Gastroenterological Association, the American Neurogastroenterology and Motility Society, and the Southern Society for Clinical Investigation. He has held editorial responsibilities with several major journals. He has been honored by Texas Tech University, the American Gastroenterological Association, the American Diabetes Association, the Texas Medical Association, and the Southern Society for Clinical Research. His research on the pathophysiology and treatments for gastroparesis has been funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and he recently received another five-year renewal of this grant for $2 million.

The Washington University Medical Center Alumni Association is pleased to present its Resident/Fellow Alumni Achievement Award to Dr. McCallum.

Published: 05/24/2017