Alexander Grant Macintyre was a family medicine specialist and general surgeon in Alliston, Ontario, Canada. He was born in Lucknow, Ontario, in 1930 and grew up on a farm. In 1948 he began studying medicine at the University of Toronto, but moved to England and Oxford University in 1951 on a scholarship. He gained his BA and BM BCh, and was awarded prizes in pathology and surgery. Whilst at Oxford he captained the university hockey team. From 1955 to 1961 he held university postgraduate posts in Oxford, Heidelberg, the Sorbonne in Paris and Harvard, and gained his FRCS from the Edinburgh and English Royal Colleges of Surgeons. From 1961 he was a resident and then consultant neurosurgeon at Walton Hospital, Liverpool, and a postgraduate clinical lecturer at the University of Liverpool. In 1970 he returned to Canada and settled in Alliston, Ontario, where he practised family medicine and general surgery. He retired in 1999. Outside medicine, he enjoyed sports (including skiing, baseball, inline and ice skating), travelling, carpentry and studying history and languages. In 1971 he married Josée van der Schilden in Amsterdam. They had two daughters, Johanna and Ruth-Ann. Alexander Grant Macintyre died on 19 August 2009, aged 79.