Rona McLeod MacKie, MD, FRCP, FRCPath, was born in Dundee, Scotland, in 1940. She was exposed to an academic lifestyle at an early age through her father, a biochemistry professor at Glasgow University. Later on, she earned her medical degree from Glasgow University.1 A particularly influential moment in Dr MacKie’s career was when she met her first patient with melanoma, a Pakistani man with an ulcerated acral melanoma. The concept of surgically treating the patient’s condition, something which stumped even Dr MacKie’s senior colleagues, sparked her passion for melanoma treatment and motivated her to devote her career to the field of dermatology.2