Melzack was a founding member of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) and a past president as well as an honorary life member. Melzack was a Member of the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame. He was also elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (1982), holds two Canadian honorary degrees, and was the first recipient of the E.P. Taylor Chair in Pain Studies at McGill (1986). He is the author of several textbooks on pain, and was co-editor of "Handbook of Pain Assessment", 1992. He has also published books of Inuit stories and won the Canada Council Molson Prize in 1985.