Willem Hendrick ('Pim') Brummelkamp was a leading Dutch surgeon who, in 1971, became professor at the University of Amsterdam. Initially he worked at Binnengasthuis, the hospital of the old Municipal University of Amsterdam, then at St Luke's Roman Catholic Hospital, and finally at the modern Academic Medical Centre. He was very much a general surgeon, who in later years concentrated on gastric and colo-rectal surgery. His father, Reindet Brummelkamp, was a surgeon to the Mission Hospital in Java and Pim Brummelkamp was born at Keboemen on 21 March 1928. In 1933 the family, including a brother, Reidert, and two sisters (Anna and Jean), returned to the Netherlands, where the father practised as a surgeon in Winterswijk. Willem Hendrick went to Haarlem High School, after which he studied medicine at Groningen University, graduating *cum laude* with a dissertation on meningiomas. His surgical training was directed by Ite Boerema at the Wilhemina Hospital. He developed an early interest in hyperbaric treatment with oxygen, and was a pioneer in the treatment of gas gangrene and acute dermal gangrene using this method. This breakthrough was reported by Brummelkamp and Boerema in 1960. Later Pim supervised the MD thesis of D J Bakker, which discussed the historical, physiological, general aspects and aetiology of these potentially fatal conditions, and the results of treatment in Amsterdam of these conditions over 20 years. At a time when Pim was working with Boerema in 1961, he published an interesting case report 'Unusual complication of pulmonary arteriovenous aneurysm: intra-pleural rupture' (*Chest* 1961;39[2];218-21). A lady of 34 had presented as an emergency with a violent haemoptysis and needed two operations to cure this complication of Rendu-Osler disease. Following his increased specialisation in gastro-intestinal surgery, Pim published quite widely. One of his joint papers, written with A F Engel, ('Secondary surgery after failed postanal or anterior sphincter repair' *Int J Colorectal Dis* 1994;9[4]:187-90) reported good results of secondary surgery after failed post-anal repair or anterior sphincter repair. An interest in stoma work led him to found the Dutch Ostomy Association (or the Harry Bacon Club). This support group catered for patients needing ileostomy, colostomy, urinary diversion and also continent conduits. Pim Brummelkamp was a tall and somewhat whimsical man: to some he appeared somewhat aloof. An excellent teacher of students, he inspired many - except those who fainted or had to leave the first lecture in their surgical course: it was a slideshow of patients after major trauma! A great Anglophile, he welcomed many visitors from the United Kingdom. The Travelling Surgical Club (TSC) and now Travelling Surgical Society of Great Britain and Ireland (TSS) visited Holland for meetings on many occasions. Founder members went on their first overseas visit to Holland in 1925, one year after it was founded in Leeds, and the Netherlands were visited on many occasions thereafter. In 1970 members watched a wide variety of operations, heard scientific papers from their hosts and saw several demonstrations, being welcomed on this occasion by W H Brummelkamp at St Luke's Roman Catholic Hospital. On a tour of the hospital and ward rounds, the Dutch hosts introduced members of the TSC to the Chief Rabbi, who had been operated on by a Protestant surgeon and in a Roman Catholic hospital! In May 1983, members of the TSC were again warmly welcomed by Pim Brummelkamp, now professor at the newly-built Academic Medical Centre (Academisch Medisch Centrum) in Amsterdam. When complete, it was destined to become the largest building in Holland. It was strategically placed close to the motorway network and to Schiphol International Airport. The hospital was well-planned, had very spacious parking facilities and a separate energy unit, which generated electricity for the whole complex. Very impressive and modern, this state-owned hospital had all the latest medical equipment, envied by all the UK surgeons attending. When receiving his honorary FRCS, the citation was given by Harold Ellis, who noted that Brummelkamp had been president of the Association of Surgeons of the Netherlands, one time editor of the *Netherlands Journal of Surgery*, and was also honorary fellow of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland, and of the New York Academy of Sciences. Outside medicine, Pim Brummelkamp was an art lover, particularly of modern art, and especially the work of the COBRA artists. COBRA (formed by the first letters of the capitals of Denmark, Belgium and Holland - Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam - where the artists were based) included Christian Dotrement, Asger Jorn and Karel Appel. All the COBRA artists experimented with spontaneity, and were inspired by primitive art and also by children's drawings. Pim was responsible for the selection of works of art and the construction of an exhibition centre when the Academic Medical Centre in Amsterdam was planned and built. Appropriately, this was named the Brummelkamp gallery, and is the largest non-museum art collection in the Netherlands. In 1989 he co-wrote *Fifteen movements in Dutch painting after 1945 from the collection of the Academic Medical Centre* (Veenman/Academic Medical Centre). Brummelkamp met his wife Hetty van Joost when they were both working in St Luke's Hospital in 1968. Hetty's father was a chest physician who initially practised in the Dutch East Indies before returning to Holland, where he had a notable career in the field of tuberculosis. Pim and Hetty married in 1975, but had no children. She trained in Leyden and became an anaesthetist who worked in Amstelven. Over the years she, Pim and her older brother Michael worked together in the same hospitals. Willem Hendrick Brummelkamp died on 7 September 2010, at the age of 81. His wife, Hetty, died in March 2013 of acute leukaemia.