Abdelaal Abdalla Osman was head of the department of surgery at the University of Khartoum, Sudan. He was born on 30 December 1930 in Omdurman, Sudan, the son of Abdalla Osman, a businessman, and Fahima Osman née Zeinelabdin, a housewife. He attended Bakht Elruda Primary School, Elduem Rural Intermediate School and then Hantoub Secondary School, and went on to study science at the University of Khartoum and medicine at the University of Cairo, qualifying in 1957. In 1961, he was appointed as a teaching assistant in the department of surgery, University of Khartoum. He went to the UK for training, at University College Hospital, the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre and the Mount Vernon Plastic Surgery Centre. He gained his FRCS in 1965. On his return to Sudan, he became a lecturer at the University of Khartoum (in 1966), a senior lecturer (in 1969), a reader (in 1974) and a professor (in 1975). From 1976 to 1982 he was head of the department of surgery in the faculty of medicine at Khartoum, where he developed postgraduate surgical studies at the university, establishing a masters’ degree in clinical surgery, which was recognised by the UK Royal Colleges. He was vice chancellor of Juba University from 1982 to 1987 and a consultant for the World Health Organization. He published several articles on plastic and reconstructive surgery, particularly keloids, and was also interested in the effect of the adoption of the Western diet on the Sudanese. He wrote about the history of medicine in Sudan and published ‘Milestones in the history of surgical practice in the Sudan’ (*Sudan Notes and Records* Vol.54 [1973] pp.139-152), and was also a Muslim scholar and wrote books on Islam. In 1982, he was made an honorary member of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland. Outside medicine he enjoyed tennis, gardening and reading, particularly the history of medicine and social sciences. In 1955, he married Nasra Mussa. They had five daughters – Asma, Umaymen, Soumaya and Sarah – and a son, Mohamed. Abdelaal Abdalla Osman died in 2009. He was 79.