Christopher Joseph Cahill, known as 'Joe', a consultant general surgeon at Kingston, was a pioneer of day-case laparoscopic cholecystectomy, an operation for which he became celebrated and which soon became the norm. He was born on 7 May 1952 in Kew, the son of Edward Joseph and Margaret Cahill. Educated at Cranleigh School and St John's College, Cambridge, he moved on to King's College Hospital for his clinical training. His registrar posts were in London and the South East, where he specialised in gastrointestinal surgery. He became a consultant surgeon at Kingston Hospital in 1992. There, together with Paul Jarrett, he developed his interest in day surgery, showing that it was not only more cost effective, but also safer for patients. He became the director of his hospital's day surgery unit. Outside the hospital, he was on the council of the British Association of Day Surgery and was its honorary secretary from 1999, forming links with the Department of Health, becoming its clinical adviser and a member of the national implementation team for the independent surgical treatment centres. On leaving the Department of Health in 2005 he, together with a small group of fellow consultants, set up one of the country's first medical partnerships, Southern Medical Partners LLP, through which consultants provide services to NHS patients in independent surgical treatment centres. It was Cahill's tenacity and enthusiasm that got this off the ground, in line with his long-held view that the medical profession was too hidebound and had to modernise and adapt for the benefit of patients. He published extensively on day surgery, and had the rare ability and patience to wade through long, barely intelligible official documents and condense them into a simplified and understandable form. Talented, hard-working and with a delightful sense of humour, he was also compassionate and kind, particularly when teaching juniors. He died after a brain haemorrhage on 11 December 2009 and was survived by his wife Frances and their three sons.