Neil Rothnie was a consultant breast surgeon and medical director of Southend Hospital. He was born into a family with a well-known name in the world of surgery: his father Norman Rothnie, who trained at Barts, was a vascular surgeon at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading and was also chairman of the specialty advisory committee at the Royal College of Surgeons of England. Norman and his wife Peggy (Margaret née Deane) had four sons – Neil, Iain and twin brothers, Bruce and Stuart. Neil attended Reading School, where he developed a strong interest in rugby; an interest that he was to follow keenly for the rest of his life. Whilst still at school he attended trials for the English Colts XV. He lost his mother Peggy to breast cancer in 1985 and possibly that pointed Neil to his future career as a breast surgical specialist. Neil entered St Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical School in 1979, where he shone not only as a student but also on the rugby field. As a house surgeon to Martin Birnstingl, he won the Bentley prize awarded to the house officer in surgery considered to be best of that year. After junior surgical posts, he became a surgical registrar at Southend Hospital. The hospital was already well known to the Rothnie family as Norman’s sister Helen was married to Tony Dingley, another Barts man who was previously senior surgeon at Southend. After registrar training, the time came for Neil to undertake research and he gained a masters degree, having worked at the Royal Free Hospital and Bristol Royal Infirmary. His thesis (1991) was entitled ‘Some new monoclonal antibodies to colorectal tumour antigens’. Following his thesis, Neil became a senior registrar at the Royal Free Hospital, after which the time was ripe for him to apply for a consultant post. Neil was keen to return to Southend and the hospital was keen to have him back. At that time outside influences by way of College and university interests could sway an appointment against the declared wishes of the hospital concerned. Neil’s slight problem in this case was that he appeared rather junior for this appointment. No side was willing to give way and finally the appointment rested with the views of the president of the College. Good sense prevailed and Neil became a very popular and accomplished contributor to a busy surgical unit with a very illustrious forebear, namely Rodney Maingot. When appointed to Southend in 1994 the service for breast disease was somewhat fragmented, with each surgeon contributing in a way which nowadays would seem rather out of place and uncoordinated. As Neil declared an interest in breast disease and in particular breast cancer, things began to change. The hospital was already blessed with a successful radiotherapy unit and this set Neil on a path to creating a service which did not keep patients waiting for weeks on end. His idea was to get through all the basic diagnostic tests in one day. This would include consultation, imaging and fine needle aspiration (FNA) cytology. Most patients would agree that uncertainty is the most frightening thing about any diagnostic service and Neil’s aim was to contract those weeks of waiting into a single day. Gradually, Neil’s concept of a dedicated breast service coalesced to the extent that a dedicated building was erected within the grounds of Southend Hospital part funded by the NHS, but also by the charity that Neil helped to set up called Bosom Pals. This contributed £750,000 to new breast services in Southend. Neil was also the Association of Breast Surgery (ABS) screening representative for the east of England region from 2006 to 2013. In addition, he was the chair of the multidisciplinary NHS breast screening programme (BSP) and ABS audit steering group from 2009 to 2013, having taken over that role from Hugh Bishop. In this role he ensured that new audit standards were adopted to take account of the updated ABS guidelines introduced in 2009. The annual audit was also expanded to examine additional aspects such as HER2 testing (testing for a growth-promoting protein on the outside of breast cells) and neoadjuvant therapies and provide more detailed information about newer techniques such as sentinel lymph node biopsy and preoperative axillary ultrasound. Due to the additional data being collected and analysed, the annual ABS/NHS BSP breast screening audit document increased in size from 155 to over 210 pages. Neil set up a weekly breast multidisciplinary team meeting at Southend and woe betide anybody who appeared not to have a full grasp of all the necessary facts. Away from breast cancer care, Neil proved to be a popular, reliable and competent colleague, as well as being much in demand by patients. He became medical director in 2011. His attention to detail and his inability to accept anything that was not absolutely correct was a great asset to the hospital, although those same attributes can make a directorship a very onerous job. Notwithstanding, his three year medical director contract was renewed to cover almost nine years of diligent work. His untimely and sudden death attributed to cardiac causes occurred whilst he was still director. In July 2020, on what would have been Neil’s 63rd birthday, the breast unit at Southend Hospital was renamed in his honour. The occasion provided an opportunity for colleagues to reflect on the enormous contribution Neil had made as a warm, generous and compassionate surgeon, who had been so enthusiastic, dedicated and hard working. These comments have been echoed by many of the thousands of patients that Neil had treated in his surgical career. In 1985 Neil married Rosalind (née Carr), a Barts graduate and subsequently a local GP, and they enjoyed a very happy marriage. They had a daughter Chrissie, a lawyer in London, and a son Alex, a specialist surgical registrar at the Royal Free Hospital. The baton of surgery in the Rothnie family passes on.