Arnold Aldis was a consultant surgeon and former postgraduate dean at Cardiff. He was born on 30 September 1910, in Paoning, Szechuan, China, the son of missionary parents. He qualified in medicine (with honours) from University College, London, in 1937. His ambition to return to China was thwarted by the outbreak of the second world war. Instead he went to Cardiff, helping to teach evacuated students from UCH. He was to stay in Cardiff for 60 years, becoming a consultant surgeon and deputy director of the academic surgical unit. He was postgraduate dean from 1970 to 1976. He loved the architecture and the friendliness of the Cardiff Royal Infirmary, and wrote its history for the centenary in 1983. At the end of the war he was awarded a Hunterian Professorship on the management of pancreatic injuries and also became an examiner for the College. As a committed Christian he travelled around Europe, helping to establish Christian Unions in universities. Throughout his life he was much in demand as a lay preacher and speaker at national and international conferences: he was a president of the Christian Medical Fellowship and was on the governing body of the Church in Wales. Arnold Aldis was a man of great integrity and simplicity. He was a gifted teacher and had the remarkable ability of speaking fluently without notes. With his wife, Dorothy, also a doctor, he took his pastoral duties seriously, especially to those from overseas. Above all he was a family man, and had two sons and two daughters. He excelled at his hobbies of gardening, photography and 'do-it-yourself'. He died as he would have wished: on 13 October 1999, having finished leading a Bible study in his home, he said 'Amen' and collapsed.