Born in Sydney in 1913 of Latvian descent, he distinguished himself as an athlete, playing Rugby football for Australia and swimming in the Sydney Life-savers Club. Qualifying in 1940 he served for five years in the Royal Australian Naval Medical Service, working for a time in the North Sea convoys between Britain and Russia. After the war he settled in England and specialised in thoracic surgery. He was attached to the thoracic unit at Harefield under T Holmes Sellors and then became thoracic surgeon to Preston Hall, Aylesford, the King George V Sanatorium, Guildford, and Colindale Hospital. He moved to Southampton in 1951 on appointment as Director of Thoracic Surgery for the Wessex Region, and joined the staff of the Southampton, Portsmouth, and Ventnor Hospitals. He was a Hunterian Professor at the College in 1956, lecturing on "The surgery of funnel chest and pigeon chest", and also wrote on the surgery of the heart and the oesophagus. "Paul" Chin, as he was generally known, married in 1942 Margaret Josephine Weddall who survived him with their three sons. He was killed on 5 December 1959 when driving his sports car near his home at Yew Tree Cottage, Nether Wallop, Hampshire, when it skidded on an icy road and turned over. A memorial service was held in the Methodist Church at Shirley, Southampton. He had supreme self-confidence and physical stamina, but was without worldly ambition, an industrious and self-sacrificing team-worker.