Hisham Ismail was born in Heliopolis, Cairo, on 28 August 1947, the second son of Mohammed Ismail, a civil aviation engineer and general manager of Cairo airport. His early education was at Heliopolis Secondary School before entering Ain Shams Medical School, Cairo, where he obtained honours in surgery at the final examination. During his student years he was judo champion for five years and some of his surgical studies were at Charing Cross Hospital. After qualifying in 1969 he came to England and initially undertook house appointments in the St Thomas's Group of Hospitals. He decided to pursue a career in surgery and from 1972 to 1975 was rotating senior house surgeon and surgical registrar in the Guy's Group where he came under the influence of Frank Ellis and Hugh Kinder. He passed the FRCS Edinburgh in 1976 and the Fellowship of the College in the following year. He had a special interest in vascular surgery and after leaving Guy's Hospital spent some time as surgical registrar at King's College Hospital. In 1972 he married an Australian anaesthetist, Dr Glenys Penniment FFARCS, who was working at Guy's Hospital in junior anaesthetic posts and after they had both completed their training they returned to her home in Perth where he was able to obtain an appointment as registrar in vascular surgery at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital, Hollywood, Western Australia. At that time his qualification permitted him to work in hospital but was not accepted by the board for registration to do private practice outside the hospital. He therefore returned to Cairo in 1983 to an appointment as associate professor of vascular surgery at Malariah Hospital where he also undertook some private practice. In 1985 he returned to Australia as vascular surgeon in Canberra but shortly afterwards developed a carcinoma of the nasopharynx which forced him to discontinue his hospital practice although he was able to continue working part-time in the department of anatomy of the University of Western Australia. He died on 17 January 1988 aged 40, survived by his wife and three children.