Carlton Oswald Fung-Kee-Fung was an obsteric surgeon in Trinidad and Tobago. Born in 1920, he was the eldest of the four children of a second generation Chinese family who ran a liquor shop in what was then known as British Guiana. In 1939 he travelled to the UK and arrived in London just before the outbreak of the second world war. He studied at London University and trained at Guy’s Hospital, qualifying in 1944. As a house surgeon at the Royal South Hants Hospital he gained a huge amount of surgical experience working with the influx of injured service personnel. He was to look back on this as a most important time – not only professionally but for the profound bonding of the medical teams suddenly faced with overwhelming numbers to deal with. In 1946 he passed the fellowship of the college and began to undertake more senior positions covering the fields of otolaryngology, urology, orthopaedics and chest surgery. On his return to Guiana he joined the hospital’s obstetrics department developing an interest in that specialty which remained throughout his career. He was the first West Indian to hold the post of surgical specialist in his country. After returning to the UK to complete his MRCOG, in 1960 he moved to Trinidad and Tobago. He continued to practice into his early seventies in spite of the after effects of a major car accident in 1988. An examiner to the nursing councils of both Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago he was always committed to encouraging nursing training and expanding their influence. While working during the war at the Royal South Hants Hospital he had met *a young attractive redhead*, Eileen Josephine O’Sullivan. She was from Trallee, County Kerry, Ireland and was a sister at the same hospital. They had four children; Helen, Keiron, Peter and Michael. The latter took up his father’s specialty and worked in the department of obstetrics and gynaecology at the University of Ottawa. He died on 14 September 2002 survived by his family.