Stephen Hugh Heaney was born in Dublin on 11 February 1940 and educated there at the High School and Trinity College. He had been admitted to Trinity with an open scholarship in mathematics but decided to read medicine. He won the Silver Medal of the Dublin University Biological Association in 1962 and the Silver Medal of the Adelaide Hospital, Dublin in 1963, the year in which he qualified. He gained the FRCSI in 1968 and the FRCS in 1969 and became one of the first to undertake the new course of higher surgical training in orthopaedic surgery. He was appointed registrar at Edinburgh where he was well suited to the orthopaedic training, being by nature well organized and somewhat serious. When he went to Sheffield as senior registrar he found a tradition of instruction which was informal rather than didactic. Although he was never quite able to make Sheffield another Edinburgh its present orthopaedic teaching programme owes much to his efforts. In both centres he was able to cultivate a special interest in their management. Just before his death he achieved the distinction of having two papers accepted for the autumn meeting of the British Orthopaedic Association. He had longed to return to Ireland and, in April 1975, he was appointed consultant orthopaedic surgeon at Naran, Co Meath. Two weeks later he died in a road accident while returning from a domiciliary consultation, he was 35 years old. His hobbies were sailing and music. He married Anne Carroll in 1966 and had three sons and one daughter.