Douglas Robert Leslie was a general surgeon at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. Born in Hitchin, Hertfordshire on 23 February 1914, he was the third child and second son of the Reverend Ernest Thomas Leslie, who was an Anglican priest, and his wife Margaret Jane (Jenny) née Maggs. After starting his education at St Gregory’s School in Luton in 1921, the family emigrated to Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. He attended the Maryborough State School from 1922 to 1926 and then Trinity Grammar School, Kew for five years. From 1932 to 1937 he studied medicine at the University of Melbourne’s Trinity College and in 1934 was prosector in anatomy. After qualifying he did house jobs at the Royal Melbourne Hospital before joining the Australian Army (AIF) in 1941. He served for four years as a major in the Middle East, New Guinea and the East Indies and was mentioned in despatches for his service, later being awarded the efficiency decoration.. After the war he passed the fellowship of the college in 1946 and returned to the Royal Melbourne Hospital. He acknowledged as his mentors several surgeons of Australian origin especially Sir Alan Newton, William Allen Hailes, Sir Thomas Dunhill, and Henry Searby. From 1959 onwards he was a consultant surgeon to the Australian Army and visited South Vietnam several times as a colonel. He believed that he had a responsibility to give back to the community as much as possible and was involved in various committees and boards of hospitals around Melbourne. He held appointments on several RACS boards including the board of examiners and was chair of the Court of Examiners, member of Council and chair of the division of general surgery. In 1967 he was appointed honorary surgeon to Her Majesty the Queen and made a member of the Order of Australia in 1974. The Victorian Regional Committee of the RACS established an award in his name in 1986. In 1943 he married Margaret Sewell Blom. She was the daughter of a Finnish sea captain who had taken her on a voyage round Cape Horn as a child. They had two sons, the eldest of whom studied medicine, and a daughter who became a nurse. Outside medicine he enjoyed photography, bush walking and fishing. Margaret predeceased him, dying on 14 January 1986, and he died on 7 November 1994 aged 80.