Rikus Schoonees was a urologist in Cape Town, South Africa. He was born in Kuruman, South Africa, on 20 October 1937. His father, Diderikus Anthonie Schoonees, was a university lecturer; his mother, Maria Magdalena Schoonees née Van Der Bergh, was the daughter of a farmer. He was educated at Paul Roos High School, Stellenbosch, and then attended the University of Stellenbosch. He gained a BSc in 1957 and in 1960 went as a Rhodes scholar to St Edmund Hall, Oxford University. He qualified MB ChB from Stellenbosch University in 1961 with a gold medal. He held a junior post at the Karl Bremer Hospital, Bellville, South Africa, and then went to the UK. From 1963 to 1966 he worked in Oxford and then at Hammersmith Hospital in London. In 1967 he returned to South Africa, to a post at Johannesburg General Hospital. Between 1968 and 1969 he worked at the Karl Bremer Hospital, Bellville. From 1970 to 1971 he was based at the Roswell Park Memorial Institute, Buffalo, New York. In 1971 he gained an MD with his thesis 'A study of the endocrine control of the prostate gland in relation to the etiology and treatment of prostatic carcinoma and benign prostatic hyperplasia.' In 1972 he returned to South Africa as a urologist in private practice in Cape Town and a senior lecturer in urology at the University of Stellenbosch Medical School. He married Marie-Hélène Albrecht, a ceramic artist, in 1968. They had a son. Rikus Schoonees died on 14 July 2014. He was 76.