John Harrington Pusey was born on 19 January 1940 and was educated at Chesham Boy's Preparatory School, Bucks, and at Wycliffe College, Stone-house, Gloucestershire. For his medical education he came to St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College where he qualified with the Conjoint Diploma and the MB BS in 1963. He held junior house appointments at Southampton, and in 1964 returned to Bart's as house surgeon in obstetrics and gynaecology, taking the DObst RCOG in 1965. Pusey then inclined towards orthopaedics and became SHO at Hackney Hospital, and in the accident and emergency unit at Luton and Dunstable Hospital. To complete his training for the FRCS he held a rotating registrarship at Southampton and a general surgical post at Winchester, obtaining the Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1968, and of England in 1969. He had been appointed registrar in orthopaedic surgery at St Bartholomew's Hospital shortly before his tragic death as the result of a shooting accident on 22 October 1969. After he died the Wessex Group of Hospitals and the Regional Board made a collection and established in his memory an annual scholarship valued at £200 for one year open to medical students interested in trauma.