Melinda completed her studies at Charles Sturt University in Albury, New South Wales, Australia, graduating with a Bachelor of Health Science (Occupational Therapy) in 2007.  She started her OT career in Melbourne, Victoria, initially working for Southern Health as a rotational junior occupational therapist and then moving onto Royal Melbourne Hospital where she started developing her skills and interest in emergency and acute medicine.

After working in Melbourne for 4 years she moved to Darwin, Northern Territory, working in the Emergency Department of Royal Darwin Hospital.  This role allowed Melinda to develop the diverse skills required for working with the unique health and social care needs of the First Australians.

From Darwin, Melinda moved to Perth in Western Australia.  She was the primary OT working on the busy Acute Assessment Unit as well as providing clinical assistance to the ED team.  After working in Perth for a year Melinda moved to London where she started her NHS career.  Initially working as a locum, primarily working in ED and acute medicine roles across London.

In 2015 Melinda started with the OT team in St Mary's Hospital Emergency Department (part of Imperial College healthcare NHS Trust).  This is where she developed her passion for frailty, particularly focusing on early identification of frailty at the front door.  In 2018 she moved into Project Management for Frailty Education.  This involved rolling out numerous frailty projects across Imperial College Healthcare Trust, facilitating training to both internal departments and external organisations, consulting with specialist areas (i.e. cardiology, renal, HIV, etc.) with frailty management for their specialist patient group and facilitating the annual pan London GEM Bootcamp.

In late 2019 Melinda was appointed to assist NHS England's Frailty Clinical Group in developing a pan London frailty learning platform.