Ian Goldie was born in Gothenburg and began his medical training in that city. In 1949 he moved to France and worked as a junior research fellow in the department of anatomy at the faculty of medicine of the University of Montpelier. Following this, he took up research fellowships in Edinburgh at the department of pathology and at the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford in the department of neurology. He returned to Sweden in 1956 to spend four years training in general surgery before joining the department of experimental surgery at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. While there he spent two years studying with Hans Selye and Fred Mosely, concentrating on inflammatory reactions and calcification in soft tissues, particularly in relation to rotator cuff injuries of the shoulder and tennis elbow. Again returning to Sweden, he continued to practice general surgery at Sahlrgren’s University Hospital in Gothenburg before a period of research at Harvard in the department of pathology in 1966. On deciding to specialise in orthopaedics, he returned to Gothenburg and then, in 1982, joined the staff of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. The author of several books and over 150 scientific papers, his main interests focused on the surgical treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, plus his earlier inflammation studies and work on hip replacement and the treatment of lower back pain. In 1987 he delivered the Naunton Dunn lecture at the British Orthopaedic Association and two years later the President’s guest lecture at the American Academy of Orthpaedic Surgeons. A Commander of Finland’s Lion Order, he gave a guest lecture to the Helsinki University faculty of medicine in 1993. He was secretary general of the Scandinavian Orthopaedic Society and scientific secretary of the Swedish Orthopaedic Society, and also held many honorary memberships of international orthopaedic associations. He was made an honorary fellow of the college on 13 July 1994. He died in Stockholm on 31 December 2018.