Sir James Fraser was a past President of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. He was born on 19 July 1924, the son of Sir John Fraser Bart, KCVO, MC, and Agnes Govane Herald. He was educated at Edinburgh Academy, where he was pipe major in the OTC, and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he won a blue for golf. He returned to Edinburgh for his clinical studies, qualifying in the year the NHS was introduced. He succeeded to his father's baronetcy in 1947. After junior posts in the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary he did his National Service in the RAMC, serving in the surgical division of the British Military Hospital, Singapore, with the rank of Major. He returned to Edinburgh as registrar in the professorial surgical unit under Sir James Learmonth and, after three years, became senior registrar. In 1958, he surprised his friends and colleagues by resigning from the NHS to join the medical service of the Government of Sarawak. There, for the next five years, he was surgeon in charge of a district hospital, the only surgeon for a large and widely scattered community. Despite these responsibilities he completed his thesis for the ChM Edinburgh. In 1963, he returned as senior lecturer in clinical surgery under Sir John Bruce, and honorary consultant surgeon at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. It was at this time that he demonstrated his notable flair for organisation and teaching, being responsible for reorganising the undergraduate programme. In 1970, he was invited to Southampton to set up an academic surgical unit in the new medical school. There his determination and charm were remarkably successful, not only in recruiting the best young surgeons he could find, but establishing what was at that time a revolutionary concept in undergraduate medical education, namely a course in which traditional clinical and pre-clinical subjects would be integrated. This course was so successful that it was imitated across the country within a decade. Fraser's contribution was recognised by the award of the FRCS *ad eundem*. Having completed this challenging task, he returned to Edinburgh in 1981 to be postgraduate dean of the faculty of medicine in the University of Edinburgh. He was President of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh from 1982 to 1985 and was largely responsible for the introduction of assessments in higher surgical training throughout the British Isles. These had been pioneered in Edinburgh, but were largely ignored by the other colleges, until pressure from the specialist associations obliged them to take heed of the Edinburgh enterprise. It was typical of Fraser's generosity that he was willing to make available all the experience and expertise his college had built up. He married in 1950 Maureen Reay, a WRAF doctor with whom he fell in love when they were en route for Singapore. They had two sons, Iain and Christopher. He was a man of great personal charm, unrufflable, ever courteous, but firm when necessary. Osteomyelitis as a child left him with a limp, and in later life, increasing disability from his hip. Despite this he continued to play golf to a high standard. He died on 8 January 1997.