Michael Peter Aroney was a general and trauma surgeon in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. He was born on 16 August 1934 in Brisbane, Queensland. His father, Peter Nicholas Aroney, was a confectioner; his mother was Irene Adie née Mavromatis. He attended Brisbane State High School and then went on to the University of Queensland to study medicine, qualifying in 1958 with honours and the William Nathaniel medal. He held junior posts at the Royal Brisbane Hospital and then went to the UK for surgical training, at Lambeth Hospital, London, Fairfield Hospital, Middlesex, and Mayday Hospital, Croydon. He gained fellowships at the Royal College of Surgeons of England and of Edinburgh, and later became a fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons. From 1965 to 1966 he was a research fellow at the Lahey Clinic, Boston. He returned to Australia, to Sydney, where he was a senior surgical registrar at Prince Henry Hospital from 1959 to 1968. For six months in 1967 he served as a surgeon in Vietnam with the Australian government. He later became a visiting medical officer at Bankstown, Canterbury and Marrickville hospitals, with rooms in Macquarie Street and Marrickville, where he had a large following in the Greek community. Bankstown, Canterbury and Marrickville hospitals, with rooms in Macquarie Street and Marrickville, where he had a large following in the Greek community. He was secretary, chairman and then vice president of the Australian Association of Surgeons (AAS) in New South Wales during the ‘doctors’ dispute’ from 1984 to 1985, when doctors in the state demanded changes to their role and remuneration in public hospitals and to the federal government’s Medicare scheme. He was also a federal councilor of the AAS from 1980. Outside medicine he enjoyed fly fishing, music (particularly jazz) and Greek history. In 1960, he married Anna Simos. They had two daughters. Michael Aroney died on 29 December 2001. He was 67.