Geoffrey Molyneux Fitzgibbon was born on 24 August 1903 in Swansea. He was the eldest son of Major John Augustine Fitzgibbon of the Royal Garrison Artillery and Elizabeth, née Molyneux. He was educated at Stonyhurst College, near Clitheroe, Lancashire, and later at London University at St Thomas's Hospital Medical School where he qualified in 1927 and graduated from London University in 1928. He took the FRCS in 1929 and in the same year obtained the degree of Doctor of Medicine of London University. After qualification he worked at St Thomas's as a house surgeon for six months and followed this with two appointments in the department of obstetrics and gynaecology. He then was appointed a surgical registrar where he received training with Philip Mitchiner. A vacancy at Bristol General Hospital was advertised for a senior resident surgical officer and thus began his long association with Bristol. In 1932 posts were advertised on the staff of Bristol General Hospital for both a consultant gynaecologist and for a general surgeon and he was invited to choose which he wanted. He was appointed to the post of honorary assistant surgeon. At the Bristol General Hospital he met his future wife, Priscilla Harrison, who at that time was a house physician. They were married in 1933. At the beginning of the second world war the Bristol General Hospital and the Bristol Royal Infirmary were amalgamated and he moved to the Infirmary where he played an important part in the management of air raid casualties. In 1942 he joined the RAMC and was seconded to work with Sir Harold Gillies at Park Prewitt Hospital, Basingstoke, for training in plastic surgery. He assembled the team for the No 5 Maxillofacial and Surgical Unit which served with the British Expeditionary Force in France, Belgium and Germany. After victory in Europe he was posted to India and was demobilised in February 1946 with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. On returning to the staff of the Bristol Royal Infirmary, as a result of his keen interest in clinical teaching, he was appointed as the first clinical dean. Training in general surgery together with wartime experience with Sir Harold Gillies and the maxillofacial unit made him realise that Bristol needed a plastic surgical unit. He started work in this field at the Bristol Royal Infirmary and his work received the recognition it deserved when, in 1949, the department of plastic surgery was opened at the Frenchay Hospital. This was a major achievement and he continued to work there until he retired in 1968. He was a founder member of the British Association of Plastic Surgeons and became its President in 1967. He was Gillies Memorial Lecturer in 1968. In 1966 he served as President of the Bristol Medico-Chirurgical Society. His work was characterised by concern for his patients and by an enduring spirit of friendship and comradeship. Every member of his staff was treated with the same courtesy and consideration. He was a man of wide interest in the arts and handicrafts, including silversmithing, and was a keen gardener. He died on 25 May 1990, survived by his wife, son, four daughters (one of whom qualified in medicine at Cambridge) and thirteen grandchildren.