David Aiken qualified in Dublin in 1940 and retained a home in Londonderry all his life. He became a Fellow of the College in 1947 and practised in the Sheffield area. After holding posts as senior surgical registrar at the United Sheffield Hospital and resident surgical officer for the Christie Hospital and the Holt Radium Institute, Manchester, he became senior consultant surgeon to Doncaster Royal Infirmary. He was a Major in the RAMC (TA), a Fellow of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and a member of the British Association of Urological Surgeons. He published several papers in the *British journal of surgery* the most recent of which was one entitled *New approach to prostatectomy* (1967). He died in 1987.