Alan Lionel Lomas graduated from the medical school in the University of Otago in 1938 at the age of 21 and for part of 1939 was house surgeon at New Plymouth General Hospital before joining the New Zealand Expeditionary Force at the beginning of the war. He served in the Western Desert and was awarded the Military Cross in 1942, the first New Zealand medical officer to be so decorated in the second world war. He was also mentioned in despatches on three occasions while serving in the Western Desert, Greece and Crete. Returning to New Zealand at the end of hostilities he became surgical registrar at New Plymouth Hospital before coming to England in 1947 to take the FRCS. On his return home he became senior surgical registrar at Auckland Hospital until he was appointed visiting surgeon at Hamilton and Waikato Hospitals in 1952. His main interest was in the treatment of malignant disease and he soon built up a busy public and private surgical practice. He recognised however that the development of a cancer unit required radiotherapeutic and oncological expertise and therefore resigned his hospital appointments in order to spend two years at the Royal Marsden Hospital studying physics and radiotherapy as well as passing the DMRT. On his return to New Zealand he set up a high quality radiotherapy department recognised by his admission as a member of the Royal Australasian College of Radiologists in 1972 and election to the Fellowship in 1984. He died on 18 May 1985, aged 68, and is survived by his wife, three sons and two daughters.