Clare Marx was a pioneer in British surgery and medicine in general, breaking through the glass ceiling in a variety of places. She was one of the first consultant female orthopaedic surgeons in the country, the first female president of the British Orthopaedic Association (BOA) and of the Royal College of Surgeons of England and likewise the first female chair of the General Medical Council (GMC). Despite never overtly wishing to be defined by her gender, she acted as a beacon and inspiration for generations of women wishing to pursue a medical career and particularly one in surgery. Clare was born in Coventry on 15 March 1954, the daughter of Brenda Marx née Johnston, a Cumbrian teacher and magistrate, and her husband Francis Marx, a German-Jewish industrial chemist whose family had fled the Nazis in 1933. Not surprisingly she was brought up to oppose any form of discrimination and this was an underlying tenet of her philosophy on life. She went to school in Warwick and subsequently Switzerland, where she became fluent in French as well as developing a love for the mountains, returning to England to finish her schooling at Cheltenham Ladies’ College. She trained in medicine at University College Hospital, London and after qualification rapidly ascended the orthopaedic surgical ladder. As part of her training she did a fellowship in hip and knee arthroplasty at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, USA, before being appointed to her first consultant post at St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington in 1990. She married Andrew Fane in 1989, who amongst other interests was a farmer in Suffolk, and decided in 1993 to seek a consultant post in Ipswich. After duly being appointed as the first woman surgical consultant in that hospital, within a year she became clinical director for orthopaedics, trauma and rheumatology, displaying her extraordinary leadership abilities. She recounted on numerous occasions her experience of sexism in the profession both overt and covert. However she met these head on with a mixture of humour and barbed repartee, which often disarmed the perpetrators. She had a deep interest in surgical training throughout her career, serving on the education committee of the BOA and subsequently was appointed chair of the Speciality Advisory Committee on Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgery. She was elected to the council of the BOA and subsequently the presidency (2008 to 2009). It was therefore not surprising that she was elected to the council of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 2009. Amongst her various council roles she was a most effective chair of the Invited Review Mechanism. In 2014 she was elected as president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, becoming the first woman in its history to achieve this honour. She fulfilled this role with distinction. One of her most important legacies will be the re-building of the College. Against a certain degree of opposition, she drove this forward from design phase to completion with great enthusiasm and determination. The new building, much appreciated by fellows and staff, will stand as a monument to Clare’s extraordinary commitment to making the Royal College of Surgeons of England fit for the modern age. A key theme throughout her career was the need to improve the standard of poorly performing units and surgeons, which by necessity did not always make her popular. But as ever she was driven by what she felt was right, despite the negative criticism. She emphasised the need for collaborative working to ensure safe surgery and the best possible patient care. This was the theme of the document *Good surgical practice*, published during her time as president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, and a principle now regarded as pivotal to surgical professionalism. The pressures on the president of the College in the present era are considerable, particularly in dealing with the media. Clare was extremely effective in her communication style, getting over her points concisely and lucidly, so they were well understood by the public and politicians alike. Following her three years as president she went on to chair the Faculty of Medical Leadership and Management from 2017 to 2018 and then was appointed as chair of the GMC in 2019 at a time of considerable criticism of that body by the medical profession. It had been accused of being too heavy-handed, particularly following the notorious handling of a trainee paediatrician who had unfortunately fallen foul of the law on gross negligence manslaughter. Clare’s task was to help repair the damage and restore faith in the GMC. She was on this journey when she was diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer and stepped down from her GMC role. She bore the disease with considerable fortitude, undergoing experimental chemotherapy, which naturally left her drained. However, despite this devastating diagnosis and therapy, she maintained an outwardly positive attitude. Only a matter of six months before her death she dug the first shovel of earth for the Dame Clare Marx building, a multimillion-pound orthopaedic centre in Colchester that will open in 2024. For her significant contributions to the profession she was awarded a CBE in 2007 and was appointed a DBE in 2018. Throughout her life she approached all she did with enthusiasm, application and determination, which encompassed her various outside interests including opera, skiing and walking, particularly in the Highlands and Alps, and her duties as Deputy Lieutenant of Suffolk, to which she was appointed in 2008. Clare will be remembered by all her colleagues as an excellent and gifted orthopaedic surgeon who showed tremendous leadership skills particularly in improving the prospects of women in surgery and left the profession in a far better place than when she entered it. However, it is more than likely that she would prefer to be fondly remembered as a compassionate and deeply caring doctor by all the many patients she looked after.