Sir Andrew Watt Kay was regius professor of surgery at Glasgow and an archetypal Scottish academic surgeon. Known by surgical trainees worldwide through his book *A textbook of surgical physiology* (Edinburgh/London, E & S Livingstone, 1959), written with R Ainslie Jamieson, Kay stood alongside many other surgical giants from north of the border. Kay (known affectionately as 'Drew') was born in Ayr on 14 August 1916, the eldest son of David Watt Kay and Jean Cuthbertson Kay née Muir, both of whom were pharmacists. He attended Ayr Academy and studied medicine at Glasgow University, graduating in 1939, having won the Brunton memorial prize as the most distinguished graduate of the year. He was later awarded an MD and the Bellahouston gold medal in 1944, the medical faculty's highest award. Between 1942 and 1945, and then again from 1948 to 1956, he was an assistant to the regius professor of surgery at Glasgow, the redoubtable Sir Charles Illingworth, thus obtaining a major formative apprenticeship, second to none for an aspiring academic surgeon. During the intervening years, from 1946 to 1948, he carried out his National Service, continuing his surgical training at Queen Alexandra's Military Hospital in London, where he held the rank of major. In 1956 he became a consultant in charge of the surgical wards at Glasgow Western Infirmary. Two years later, he was appointed professor of surgery at Sheffield University, where he established a renowned surgical training school notable for spawning a clutch of surgical professors trained with an ethos linking the long academic tradition of the Scottish medical schools with the practicalities of providing surgical services to a large industrial city. In 1964 he returned to Glasgow, to succeed Illingworth as regius professor, and was almost immediately made a member of the Royal Commission on Medical Education. It was between these two environments, Sheffield and Glasgow, that Kay developed his research interests in gastroenterology in general and peptic ulceration in particular. In this latter arena he gained worldwide recognition. It was during his tenure at Sheffield that he was awarded an FRCS *ad eundem* by the Royal College of Surgeons of England. Thereafter further accolades were bestowed upon him, and inevitably his involvement in administrative and political activities steadily increased. In 1969, during his tenure as president of the Surgical Research Society, he took up the Sir Arthur Sims Commonwealth travelling professorship. He was awarded the Cecil Joll prize and the Gordon Gordon-Taylor lectureship and medal. In 1971 he was made a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and, in the following year, became president of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow. He was surgeon to the Queen in Scotland and part-time chief scientist to the Scottish Home and Health Department from 1973 to 1981. He was knighted in 1973. In 1943 he married Janetta Roxburgh. They had two sons and two daughters. Janetta predeceased him in 1990, and he subsequently married Phyllis Gillies, in 1992. Kay died on 1 February 2011 in Paisley, Renfrewshire, at the age of 94.