Rupert Kushlick was born in 1932 in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, the son of Phillip Kushlick, a paediatrician, and Taubie, an actress. He matriculated at the Marist Brothers College, Johannesburg, and graduated in medicine from the University of Witwatersrand in 1954. After junior posts, he specialised in orthopaedics, went to London to pass the FRCS and was later a registrar at the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Hospital in Oswestry, where he worked for Osmond Clarke, Watson Jones, Lloyd Griffiths and Robert Roaf. He then went to Liverpool under Fred Dwyer and Geoff Osborne and passed the MCh. He returned to Johannesburg to become consultant orthopaedic surgeon at the Baragwanath Hospital. Later he was also part-time consultant at the Boksburg-Benoni Hospital and the ERPM Gold Mining Company Hospital. From 1985 to 1991 he was the senior orthopaedic surgeon at the Chamber of Mines Hospital in Cottesloe, returning to full-time academic practice at the Johannesburg Hospital and University of the Witwatersrand in 1992. There he set up an adult reconstructive orthopaedic unit and became renowned for his teaching, which he continued even during his terminal illness, giving tutorials in his own home. It was said that his love of teaching was only surpassed by his love of golf. He died on 21 June 1997, leaving his wife Simone, children, Richard and Anne, and his grandchildren.