Ben Eiseman was professor of surgery and medicine at the University of Colorado. He was born on 2 November 1917 in St Louis, Missouri, and was educated at John Burroughs School, St Louis, Yale University and Harvard Medical School. After gaining his MD in 1943, he was an intern at Massachusetts General Hospital. He served in the US Navy from 1943 to 1946, on landing crafts as a beach battalion doctor and surgeon, and participated in the Anzio, Normandy, Peleliu, Philippines and Okinawa actions. After the war he stayed in the US Naval Reserves and later served in Vietnam and in Operation Desert Storm in the Gulf. He retired as a rear admiral in 1974. From 1946 to 1950 he was a surgical resident at Barnes Hospital, Missouri. In 1953 he was made chief of surgery at Denver Veterans Administration Hospital and in 1961 became the founding chairman of surgery at the University of Kentucky. Six years later, he moved to Denver General Hospital, where he was founding chief of surgery. From 1977 to 1988 he was chief of surgery at the Denver Rose Medical Center. He was the author or co-author of over 450 scientific papers and edited seven books on general surgery. He was a long-standing member of the executive council of the Society of University Surgeons and president in 1962. He was vice president of the American Surgical Association (from 1982 to 1984) and of the American College of Surgeons (from 1985 to 1986). From 1961 to 1967 he was founding chairman of the American College of Surgeons' committee on international relations. He received numerous awards and honours, including honorary fellowships from the Royal College of Surgeons, the Royal College of Surgeons of Thailand and of the Colombian College of Surgeons. Outside medicine he was a dedicated mountaineer, outdoorsman and community leader. He was chairman of the Colorado Outward Bound School and cofounder of the Tenth Mountain Trail Association. The Ben Eiseman Hut outside of Vail, Colorado, was built in his honour. In December 1945 he married Mary Georgina Harding. They had two sons, John and Andrew, two daughters, Jane and Lucy, and five grandchildren. Ben Eiseman died on 19 November 2012. He was 95.