Andrew Michael Munster was professor of surgery and plastic surgery at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore and president of the American Burn Association. He was born in Budapest, Hungary on 10 December 1935. His father, Leo Stephen Munster, was a merchant; his mother was Marianne Munster née Barcza, the daughter of Ernest Barcza, managing director of Krupp Industries (Hungary). His uncle, Ladislaus Munster, became professor of medical history at the University of Ferrara. Andrew Munster emigrated to Australia and attended Sydney Grammar School, where he won prizes for debating and chess, and gained a Commonwealth scholarship to study medicine at the University of Sydney. He was awarded the BMA students essay prize in 1958 and qualified in 1959 with first class honours and the George Allen prize for therapeutics and the J Harris scholarship. He was a junior and then a senior assistant resident at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney from 1959 to 1960. He subsequently travelled to the UK, where he was a house surgeon under Ralph Shackman at the Hammersmith Hospital and a registrar in Southend, where he worked with Bernard J Sanger. He then went to the United States, where from 1965 to 1968 he was a junior to the chief resident at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, Boston under Joseph Murray and Francis D Moore. From 1968 to 1971 he served in the US Army Medical Corps, ending his service as a lieutenant colonel. In 1971, he was appointed as an assistant professor of surgery in South Carolina. Five years later, he became a professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins, a post he held until his retirement in 2000. He wrote five books, 30 chapters and 200 papers, mostly on burns and immunology. He introduced the concept of immunological changes in the host to the burns/trauma specialty, and promoted the idea that quality of life was as important as the mortality rate. He also, in his own words: ‘Preached to students/residents that the surgeon must remain a “complete physician” and read literature, play music, enjoy sports etc.’ A Hunterian Professor in 1972, he was president of the American Burn Association in 1996. He was an avid stamp collector and enjoyed mountain trekking, piano, tennis and golf. In 1963, he married Joy O’Sullivan, who was a nurse at St Mary’s Hospital. They had three children – Andrea, Tara and Alexandra. He died on 27 September 2003 at the age of 67.