Lucas Carl Jansen van Rensburg was always known as Boet. Although he was born in Parys, Free State, South Africa, his family lived mostly on the Zambian copperbelt and he travelled long distances to attend boarding school in Bethlehem. He studied medicine at the University of Cape Town and graduated MB, ChB in 1949. After postgraduate work with Jan Hendrick Louw, he became (in 1961) one of the first candidates to acquire the fellowship of the newly established College of Surgeons of South Africa. He travelled to the UK where he worked at St Thomas’ and St Bartholomew’s Hospitals and passed the fellowship of the college in 1962. On his return to South Africa in 1963, he accepted an appointment at the University of Stellenbosch, but this proved uncongenial and he began an outstandingly successful private practice, first in Port Elizabeth and later in Cape Town. After a further position at Stellenbosch fell through in 1976 he returned in 1981 as head of the department of surgery at the University and at Tygerberg Hospital, filling the post with great skill until he was required to retire in 1990 at the age of 65. He continued his private practice for a further 5 years and then took up a full time position as consultant surgeon at Paarl Provincial Hospital until being asked to retire (on the grounds of his age) in 2003. Indefatigable, he retrained in forensic pathology and continued carrying out post-mortem examinations until two weeks before he died. From 1988 to 1990 he was president of the Association of Surgeons of South Africa. Boet and his wife, Elizabeth, had a son, Dorian, who was their only child. Tragically he was murdered on the Franschoek Pass in July 1999 by a group of robbers who took his car and valuables. Boet died on 25 April 2008 aged 82.