Sir Herbert Livingston Duthie (known as Bert to colleagues and family) was provost of the University of Wales College of Medicine. He was born into a modest but happy home in Glasgow, the eldest of three children, and soon made an impression academically, winning prizes throughout his school years. He loved the sciences and mathematics, initially considering the latter subject for higher studies. Opting for medicine, he gained a bursary to study at Glasgow University and qualified MB ChB with honours in 1952. As a student, he represented his country playing as a defender in the Scottish Universities football team. It was at his university's athletic club that he met the young medical student he would later marry, Maureen McCann. After qualification, Bert completed house jobs and chose to specialise in surgery. He carried out his National Service as a captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps in Egypt from 1954 to 1956, where he was also put in charge of organising rugby for his unit. He recounted flooding the pitch to soften the ground before some bone-crunching encounters playing as lock forward. Unusually he combined his duties in the pack with performing as a goal-kicker, which he found easy. On his return to Glasgow, he held several posts at Glasgow Western Infirmary and embarked on an MD in surgery. His talents gained coverage in the local press when he also won the gold medal for the fellowship exam of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and a scholarship to do surgical research at the Mayo Clinic. In March of the following year, he and Maureen were married before they sailed out to the USA in the summer. After a pleasant few weeks on an epic coast to coast road trip in a Volkswagen Beetle, they arrived in Rochester, where life proved challenging for the newlyweds. Maureen was waitressing to supplement a meagre stipend from Bert's scholarship. Nights out were funded by donating blood at the local blood bank! They returned to Glasgow in 1960 and Bert became a lecturer in surgery, working for Sir Charles Illingworth, during which time his enthusiasm for surgical physiology, particularly of the stomach, was developed. The following year he moved to a readership in Leeds with John Goligher. It was during these appointments that he developed an interest in the surgical treatment of duodenal ulcer. In collaboration with Goligher, he was a major investigator and contributor to the randomised trial of vagotomy and pyloroplasty versus highly selective vagotomy, which changed the management of duodenal ulcer until the later introduction of H2 receptor antagonists. From 1964, he became one of the youngest ever professors of surgery when he was awarded a chair at Sheffield University. At Sheffield, he developed an outstanding unit with major gastrointestinal research interests, predominately gastrointestinal motility, gastric secretion and nutrition. Bert flourished in Sheffield, building an international profile as a clinician and academic. He undertook visiting lectureships in South Africa and Australia. His surgical abilities were attested to by numerous grateful patients. Similar numbers of trainees and students praised his teaching: surgery and teaching were the two facets of his work that mattered to him most. Perhaps because of his high standards, Bert chose to stop operating when he was still at the height of his powers. After 15 years as a professor in Sheffield, he made a move into academic administration and was appointed to the post of provost of the Welsh National School of Medicine. He moved to Cardiff in 1979 to take up this post with mixed feelings after all the happy years in Sheffield and drawing a line under his surgical practice. Typically, however, he threw all his energies into building up the faculty in Cardiff, in particular by establishing the now world-renowned genetics team. He was honoured with a knighthood for services to medicine and surgery in 1987. This honour recognised his contributions to academic surgery, the work he had undertaken as provost and his work for the General Medical Council on its conduct committee and as treasurer. Additionally, the library that he developed for the medical school in Cardiff was named after him. He will also be remembered for many years of service as an examiner for the Royal College of Surgeons, for stints as secretary and president of the Society of Academic and Research Surgery, and as president of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland. Among his many publications, seminal works on upper and lower gastrointestinal motility and physiology still gain citations in current literature. For all his brilliance as a clinician and academic, Herbert was a gentle, caring and thoughtful man who influenced many of those he treated and taught by his compassion and modesty. He was passionate about surgery and teaching and relished taking questions in lectures. He was also sparing with his opinions, choosing his words carefully and guiding his charges deftly, with a light touch. He retired in 1994, dividing his time between Cheltenham and southern Spain, where he and Maureen enjoyed many happy days playing golf and bridge. They were also regular participants in Moynihan Surgical Club meetings. His last few years were affected by Alzheimer's disease, which, with the close support of his beloved Maureen, he endured with characteristic stoicism and courage. His peaceful death from pneumonia on 24 April 2015, aged 85, was a happy release. Bert was survived by his wife, his four children and five grandchildren.