Born on 15 October 1932 in Auckland, Doous attended the Mount Albert Grammar School, Auckland University College and the University of Otago where he graduated MB ChB in 1956, and where in his final year he was awarded the Sir Carrick Robertson Surgical Prize. He was junior and senior house surgeon with the Auckland Hospital Board and a foundation member of the House Surgeons' Association. In 1959 he went as a general practitioner to the Chatham Islands and then returned to Auckland for two years as surgical registrar. In 1962 he went to the United Kingdom and while in England became a Fellow of both the English and Edinburgh Colleges of Surgeons within the same year, 1963. He was chief assistant to the department of surgery at St Bartholomew's Hospital in 1966 and from 1968 to 1970 was senior registrar and surgical tutor at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School. Throughout his eight years in the United Kingdom he made a name for himself in surgical research and in 1967 he was awarded a research fellowship by the Imperial Cancer Research Fund. While holding this fellowship he made a study in vivo of steroidogenesis by the human adrenal gland and ovary. In order to carry out this work he mastered the intricacies of steroid biochemistry so that he was able to discuss and plan experiments as an equal with the best steroid biochemists in London - no mean feat for a surgeon. He presented this work as a thesis to the University of Otago and was awarded the degree of ChM in 1969. He returned to Auckland in 1970 as senior lecturer in the new department of surgery and in 1973 was promoted to Associate Professor in recognition of his clinical, teaching and research contributions to the department of surgery. Trevor Doous was an excellent example of that rare breed of person known as an academic surgeon. He was a skilled and imaginative clinical surgeon with a real flair for research. His special interest was in surgery of cancer of the breast, and his opinion and advice on the handling of patients with disseminated breast cancer was much sought after, and these cases were put under his care. That the quality of his research was fully recognized can be seen from the number of his papers in international journals in the field and from his being invited to participate in conferences in Singapore, Malaysia and India. He was an excellent and enthusiastic teacher, a good bedside instructor and most insistent on the correct interpretation of clinical signs in surgery. He was a clear and imaginative lecturer, using modern audio-visual methods, and with a flair for the theatrical to stimulate his student audience. He had a genuine interest in the students he taught and in their activities, both curricular and extra-curricular. One of his favourite recreations was fishing in both sea and lakes, and he learnt to fly after his return to New Zealand. He died on 21 June 1975 and was survived by his wife Dr Jennifer Wilson and two daughters.