Frank Schiess was an orthopaedic surgeon in Macclesfield. He was born in Singapore on 24 July 1940. His parents were Swiss: his father, Edward, was a businessman, his mother was Elsa (née Pfister). The family escaped to Perth, Western Australia, just before the arrival of the Japanese. After the war he and his mother moved back to Switzerland and then to London, where his mother worked in Harley Street for Professor Kekwick. Frank attended St George’s School, Tunbridge Wells, and, from the age of 13, the Skinners’ School, from where he proceeded to the Middlesex Hospital. After qualifying he became house surgeon to Mr Handley, when he met Diana Kerswell, a staff nurse, whom he married in 1965. After further junior appointments in casualty at St George’s and general surgery in Ashford in Kent, he became an orthopaedic registrar in Cambridge, and was later lecturer in orthopaedic surgery at Manchester Royal Infirmary. He was appointed consultant orthopaedic surgeon to the Macclesfield hospitals in 1984, where he worked for almost 20 years, providing a full orthopaedic and trauma service, with a special interest in spinal surgery. His opinion was much sought after in medico-legal circles, and it was while waiting to give evidence that he suffered a fatal myocardial infarction on 9 December 2004. He is survived by his wife, two sons (Guy and Simon) and a daughter (Fiona), who also qualified at the Middlesex Hospital.