Donald Macleod Douglas was born on 28 June 1911 and educated at Madras College, University of St Andrew's, where he graduated MB ChB in 1934. He became Commonwealth fellow and fellow in surgery at the Mayo Clinic from 1937 to 1939 and was then appointed first assistant in surgery at the British Postgraduate Medical School from 1939 (when he gained the Fellowship of the College) to 1941. During the second world war he served in the Royal Army Medical Corps with the 8th Army in the Middle East. He became a lieutenant colonel and was awarded the MBE in 1943. Returning to London he took up a post as senior lecturer at the British Postgraduate Medical School from 1946 to 1947. He then moved to Scotland and became reader in experimental surgery at the University of Edinburgh and deputy director of Wilkie Surgical Research Laboratories from 1947 to 1951. Appointed the first full time professor of surgery at St Andrew's University Medical School in Dundee, Donald Douglas was one of the postwar surgeons who transformed university surgery in Britain. A natural surgeon, he was skilful and courageous yet always relaxed while operating - the time that his assistants found best to ask a favour. Though a committed general surgeon, he pioneered his special interest in cardiovascular surgery while supporting the introduction of new surgical specialties. His analytical mind, which quickly unravelled a problem, made him a gifted teacher (he excelled at formal lectures) and a dedicated inquirer. His initial research in gastrointestinal physiology and shock and the use of radioisotopes in surgical research was followed by a deep interest in factors influencing wound healing, about which he wrote extensively. His realisation that it was people who were the source of wound infections stimulated work on operating theatre procedure and led to the design of ideal surgical facilities in Dundee's new teaching hospital at Ninewells, and the use of trousers by his female theatre staff. Douglas was appointed Surgeon to the Queen in Scotland in 1965, a post he held until his retirement in 1976. He was President of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain from 1963 to 1964, President of the Surgical Research Society of Great Britain from 1966 to 1968 and President of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh from 1970 to 1973. He was knighted in 1972 and awarded an honorary DSc from St Andrew's University in the same year. He was also active in health service planning, and sought relaxation from his busy life in his home and garden. He loved the Scottish countryside, and joining him in his evening walk with his gun-dogs was a necessary part of an external examiner's duties. A formidable, determined and decisive man, he often managed to get committees to see his view as the only rational way forward. He was devastated when his daughter Sheena, then a house surgeon, was killed while driving home. He died on 28 January 1993, survived by his wife Diana, two sons, and one daughter.