Born on 13 August 1892 Sydney Malkin was educated at Epworth College, Rhyl, and University College Hospital, London. After qualifying in 1915 he went on active service in France as a regimental medical officer. After the war he held resident posts in London at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, St Bartholomew's, and the Hospital for Sick Children, and in 1923 became resident surgical officer at what is now the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital, Birmingham. A few years earlier Sir Robert Jones and G R Girdlestone had put forward a National Scheme for the Care of Crippled Children. Under the presidency of Winifred, Duchess of Portland, citizens of Nottingham formed a Cripples Guild and in 1923 Malkin was appointed their first orthopaedic surgeon. Plans were made to build an orthopaedic hospital and a site hear Mansfield was given by the Duke of Portland; Lord Trent, chairman of Boots, offered the services of his company to build the hospital without profit. This Harlow Wood Orthopaedic Hospital was opened in 1929 by the Duke and Duchess of York (King George VI and Queen Elizabeth). Malkin was appointed surgeon-in-charge and under his supervision the hospital expanded and became well known throughout the orthopaedic world. After the second world war he planned the Portland Training College, which was opened in 1950 with generous local support. He was next involved with Nottinghamshire Education Committee's project for a school for handicapped children, which was completed in 1957 at Thieves Wood near the hospital and training college. Malkin held appointments at Newark, Grantham, Loughborough, Mansfield and Retford hospitals, and was President of the Nottingham Medico-chirurgical Society. He was President of the Nottingham branch and chairman of the Orthopaedic group of the British Medical Association and was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Association in 1961. He was President of the section of orthopaedics in the Royal Society of Medicine in 1936 and of the British Orthopaedic Association in 1948-49. He presided at the joint meeting of the British and Canadian Orthopaedic Associations at Quebec in 1948, and initiated with R I Harris of Toronto a scheme for interchange of visits among young American, British and Canadian orthopaedic surgeons. During the 1920s he introduced the operation of trochanteric osteotomy for osteoarthritis of the hip joint. He wrote much both on surgical technique and on training of the disabled. Shortly before he died the new nurses' building at Harlow Wood Hospital was named the Alan Malkin House. His recreations were riding and gardening. He practised at 54 The Ropewalk, Nottingham and lived at Halam where he died on 20 February 1964 aged 71, survived by his wife and two daughters. The funeral was at Southwell Minister. Publication: Conquest of disability. Robert Jones Lecture 1956. *Ann Roy Coll Surg Engl* 1957, 20, 99.