Colin Dent was clinical Professor of orthopaedic surgery at Cardiff University. He was born on 16 July 1959 and, due to his father's death when he was a teenager, he left school early to work in a laboratory. However he managed to obtain a place at University College London to study medicine in 1979. He did house jobs at UCH and in Darlington followed by basic surgical training in Bristol and London. He obtained his fellowship in 1988 and, in August that year, he entered orthopaedic higher surgical training in Cardiff becoming senior registrar in 1991. During this time he held several prestigious fellowships including one from the BOA and one at the Wrightington Hospital working with John Stanley on upper limb surgery. Appointed senior lecturer to the trauma/orthopaedic unit at the University of Wales College of Medicine in Cardiff in July 1994 he continued his research into upper limb surgery (enhanced by a six month fellowship in Boston, USA in 1995) and also degenerative joint disease (in collaboration with Professor Bruce Caterson). He served on the councils of many important organisations such as the British Society for Surgery of the Hand and was on the editorial board of both the *British and European Journal for Surgery of the Hand* and the *Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery*. A member of the Association of Professors of Orthopaedic Surgery, the British Orthopaedic Research Society and the British Elbow and Shoulder Society, he also served with distinction on the Specialist Advisory Committee for Orthopaedics and advisor to the Healing Foundation and the Wishbone Trust. At the College he was an examiner for the FRCS (Orth). He was also an active researcher and published widely although the main thrust of his work was on the degeneration of the synovial joint and on rheumatoid disease of the upper limb. During his time as a senior registrar he developed non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and had to have six months off work for radiotherapy. Although he thought that his illness was cured, it sadly recurred just around the time he was appointed to the long vacant chair of orthopaedics at Cardiff. For the following five years he continued his high profile career in spite of increasingly aggressive and unpleasant therapy. He was well liked by his peers, an inspiring and amusing teacher who was popular with his students, and greatly loved by his patients. He died at home on 8 July 2009, just 8 days short of his 50th birthday, and was survived by his wife Sarah, two daughters Rebecca and Rosie and his son, William.