Ralph Beverly Lynn, known as ‘Bev’, was born on 24 August 1921 in Penetanguishene, Ontario, Canada. Having initially attended a local school, he moved to one in Midland, Ontario. He studied medicine at Queen’s University Medical School in Kingston, graduating top of his year in 1945. After house jobs at the Kingston General Hospital, he served briefly with the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps. He came to the UK and worked as a senior registrar in the pathology department at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School in London. Following that, he undertook various posts in London and Edinburgh, passing the fellowship of the college in 1949 and of the Edinburgh college around that time. Moving to the USA, he spent time at Western Reserve University in Cleveland and Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore researching peripheral vascular disorders and the application of the heart-lung machine and investigating the incidence of hypothermia to patients undergoing surgical correction of cardiovascular disease. Eventually his old medical school decided to open a brand new cardiac catheterization and pulmonary laboratory and Bev was invited back to become head of cardiothoracic surgery. Inevitably, he took on an immense amount of administrative work plus the initial headache of setting up the heart-lung machine. Over the years he built up a reputation as an excellent clinical and operative cardiothoracic surgeon and was known for his cutting humour. A friend recalled his favourite aphorism - *statistics are used as a drunken man uses a lamp- post – not so much for the light it sheds on the problem as for the support it gives to his position*. He was an active member of the Canadian Thoracic society and its president from 1970 to 1971. He and his wife Blanche had four sons. They were both killed in a road traffic accident in Ontario on 1 December 2006. He was 85 years old.