Robert Scott was born in Belfast, the son of Thomas Montgomery Scott, a grocer, and his wife Margaret, née Spence, on 16 August 1929. He was to follow the tradition of many Irish doctors in making his career in the army. After early education at Campbell College in Belfast he gained a closed scholarship to University College Oxford, after which he proceeded to King's College Hospital Medical School in London. He qualified with the Oxford MB in 1955 and joined the army immediately after his house jobs. Posted to a series of hospitals in Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong he developed an interest in surgery and was seconded for periods to the Birmingham Accident Hospital and to the Eastern General Hospital, Edinburgh. At the former, Peter London stimulated much of his subsequent research work on injuries. Having passed the FRCS in 1962, gained some experience in a Field Surgical Unit in Borneo and in Northern Ireland and published a series of reports on the problems of injury in armoured fighting vehicles, he was rewarded by promotion to the rank of lieutenant colonel and was appointed Commandant of the Royal Army Medical College, Millbank. He won the Mitchiner medal of the Royal College of Surgeons and served the College as joint professor with the RAMC. He was appointed Honorary Surgeon to the Queen 1987 to 1989, and was awarded the CB in 1989. He retired as Major General in that same year and, being a man who enjoyed a social and sporting life, had every reason to look forward to many active and enjoyable years with his wife Rosemary (née Sutherland) and their three children. The bagpipes and golf were his particular pleasures. Unhappily this idyllic retirement was cut short when he died in a sailing accident on 13 March 1991.