Neil MacDonald was a consultant surgeon at the Wythenshawe Hospital, Manchester. He was born on 29 October 1927 in Suffolk, the son of E A MacDonald. He was educated at Ipswich Grammar School and Epsom College, from which he won a scholarship in science to the London Hospital Medical College in 1945. After qualifying with honours in clinical medicine and pathology, he was house physician to Lord Brain and Bomford, and house surgeon to Alan Perry and Gerald Tresidder. He then did six months as a clinical assistant in the clinical laboratory before doing his National Service in the Colonial Medical Service in Malaya during the insurrection. He returned to be a registrar in general surgery at the London Hospital while studying for the FRCS, after which he became a registrar at Preston Royal Infirmary. He was appointed as a consultant surgeon at Wythenshawe Hospital in 1968 and in 1980 became an honorary lecturer in surgery at the University of Manchester. He was chairman of the medical executive committee at Wythenshawe Hospital from 1982. He died in 2008.