Simon Frostick was a professor of orthopaedics at the University of Liverpool. First and foremost, he was a courageous, versatile and skilled surgeon; he loved to operate and the more difficult the procedure the better. He taught and shared his surgical skills, insights and approaches generously with postgraduate clinical students, trainees and fellows, took his skills to clinics, operating theatres and lecture halls around the world, published widely, sat on innumerable committees and advisory boards, developed national and international curricula and instituted research studies. He was born in Chatham, Kent on 23 January 1955, the son of Alan Norman Frostick and Estella Olive Frostick née Knight. He studied at Oxford, gaining a BA in 1975 and his BM BCh in 1978. Following basic surgical training in Oxford, he passed his FRCS in 1983. He spent nine months as the Stanley Johnson fellow training in microsurgery with Colin Green at Northwick Park Hospital. In 1983 he was appointed as a lecturer in trauma and orthopaedics at the Nuffield orthopaedic centre, Oxford under Robert Duthie. From 1985 to 1988 he worked with George Radda, also at Oxford, gaining experience in magnetic resonance spectroscopy of muscle metabolism. This research led in 1989 to a DM and, in 1991, the Hunterian professorship at the Royal College of Surgeons of England. In 1988, Simon moved to the University of Nottingham, working under the guidance of W A Wallace, progressing from lecturer to senior lecturer. It was here that Simon developed his specialist interest in shoulder and elbow surgery. In 1995, Simon moved to Liverpool as professor of orthopaedics. Here he established the upper limb unit as a centre of excellence for shoulder and elbow surgery, initiating and organising the first weekly upper limb multidisciplinary team meeting in 1998. He also instituted upper limb cadaver courses to expand the cohort of skilled upper limb surgeons. The unit developed from one surgeon at the Royal Liverpool Hospital to nine dedicated upper limb consultants and a team of specialist physiotherapy practitioners. The unit has been acknowledged as the leading upper limb referral centre in the country and an internationally renowned shoulder and elbow centre for reconstruction and arthroscopy surgery. As a surgeon, Simon offered a broad spectrum of operations within the shoulder and elbow region, which few other surgeons could offer. He took on cases like scapulothoracic fusion, sternoclavicular stabilisations, the first ever sternoclavicular joint replacement, complex reconstructions of the upper limb including total humeral replacement and Eden Lange procedures usually encountered only in textbooks. He undertook joint cases with like-minded colleagues Simon Lambert, Qi Yin and Daniel Brown, such as a custom elbow that linked all the way to the wrist, complex muscle transfers, complex brachial plexus reconstruction repairs and tumour resections. He accepted patients from all over the UK and overseas, treated musicians and sportsmen, but particularly the people of Liverpool. His theatre lists were legendary, two on a Monday, in parallel with overseeing a fellows’ list of straightforward cases. His list could include one or more shoulder replacements, a brutal revision, an intricate arthroscopic procedure and an exploration of the brachial plexus. While operating, he delighted in teaching, but was meticulous in executing the procedure, determined to get the best possible outcome for his patient. At the end of the list, whatever the day had presented, he would always thank his team in person for their help. Simon’s pioneering vision placed physiotherapists at the centre of his multidisciplinary team. With their ground-breaking rehabilitation programmes, many patients were saved from the knife entirely. He insisted that by respecting and learning from each other, together the team could find options where others had failed, ensuring the best outcome for his patients. He was a fierce supporter of good work and good science and a fierce opponent of laziness and poor effort. Each team member had to earn their stripes. He could seem intimidating, perhaps a little derogatory, as he put physiotherapists and surgeons through their paces, challenging their learning and understanding, but each read and learned more. He had over 116 publications to his name, many on shoulder and elbow surgery, but also on medical audit, curriculum development, peripheral nerve surgery, orthopaedic tumours and thromboprophylaxis. To support a basic science research programme he, together with his musculoskeletal science research group, established the Liverpool musculoskeletal biobank. The laboratory-based research programme, developed with Margaret Roebuck, examined the molecular mechanisms of pathological conditions such as soft tissue sarcoma, rotator cuff tears, aseptic loosening and osteoarthritis. He was always grateful for generous collaborations with all the Liverpool orthopaedic surgeons, especially the lower limb team, including Alasdair Santini and Viju Peter. Latterly, he was undertaking research into the effects of deprivation on orthopaedic outcomes presented at the British Orthopaedic Association. When Simon first arrived in Liverpool, he inherited the mantle of the director of the master of surgery (orthopaedics) and became training programme director, identifying the urgent need for an overhaul of the whole training trajectory. Together with Qi Yin, the deputy director, he undertook a major re-organisation and developed a modular curriculum for the MCh. Between 1995 and 2005 around 400 trainees graduated, building an extensive and global alumnus. He was devastated by the decision of the University of Liverpool to close the programme, but he adapted and moved on. His international connections and reputation encouraged and supported many trainees from multiple countries to come to Liverpool to learn advanced surgical techniques and research skills. Trainees came from Australia, Belgium, Brunei, China, Cyprus, Egypt, Greece, India, Iran, Japan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Oman and Saudi Arabia, with Simon revelling in the multi-cultural mix and making return visits when he could. He joined the specialist advisory committee for trauma and orthopaedics in 2005, becoming vice chair from 2011 to 2013. Simon was frustrated by its inability or unwillingness to change and its failures in curriculum development within the intercollegiate surgical curriculum project. From 2011 to 2013 he was also chair of the British Orthopaedic Association’s training standards committee and curriculum development group. His team including David Pitts, developed iterations of the curriculum from 2011, culminating in the GMC approved versions in 2013 and 2015, which then formed the basis of further versions. He worked with the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, as a member of council from 2014 to 2019. He was an active trustee, contributing to numerous financial and audit committees and led on projects redeveloping the College’s IT and communications structure. He was a member of the international strategy committee from 2014 to 2017 and led the development of the College’s first international strategy between 2015 and 2016. He was director of RCSEd-Malaysia’s initiative to support training in South East Asia between 2017 and 2019. He supported Colin Green in setting up the first faculty of medicine in Jerusalem. What he helped start in 1994 with a first cohort of 32 medical students on one campus has mushroomed into six medical schools with over 2,500 students. Simon also shared the insistence that women had equal opportunity in health care and medical schools in Palestine now have a ratio of 60:40 women to men. He also developed an extensive collaboration with the University of Malaya and its medical centre. He travelled to Kuala Lumpur every two to three months, spending a week there, working from the moment he left the plane until he stepped back on it again to leave. Jet lag was simply dismissed. He held meetings all day, from a working breakfast to dinner and beyond. He worked there as a surgeon, attended clinics and went into packed and chaotic clinics, walking around looking for cases and students with whom to share his teaching. He also designed and implemented a curriculum of postgraduate clinical training for the whole of Malaysia. With David Pitts he founded the International Curriculum Development Institute to facilitate sharing good practice and materials. In recognition of his international standing, Simon received many honours. He was a corresponding member to the American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons and the Shoulder and Elbow Society of Australia. He was an honorary life member of the Indian Orthopaedic Association and a life member of the Greek Shoulder and Elbow Association. He was a visiting professor in Xi’an (China), Toronto, Ioannina (Greece), Chandigarh (India), at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota and at the University of Malaya, where he was given the title of academic icon. He had a huge and infectious love of life, and a wicked sense of humour, not least at himself, being more than slightly eccentric. He was profoundly generous and a man with insight and integrity. He lived and breathed ethical professional behaviour. He never crossed an ethical line himself and held to account anyone else who did. He sacrificed his own popularity to make things work. He insisted on telling the truth, even when he knew it would make him unpopular with certain organisations. He established trust based on openness, truthfulness and candour. He believed in collaboration and was clinically multilingual. He believed in questions; as far as Simon was concerned there was no such thing as a stupid question, only people who are too stupid to ask. He gave respect to all he worked with no matter what their seniority. He gave his time generously, visiting, reviewing documents, discussing problems and finding solutions. He left behind a huge vacuum in orthopaedics. His combination of academic excellence, research and education with clinical skills and patient care is terribly difficult to find. It requires long hours, inexhaustible energy and massive determination. He is sadly missed by colleagues and patients alike. He was an outstanding surgeon, a trusted colleague and friend, and never afraid to give an honest opinion. The Frostick Foundation has been set up by colleagues to support research, education and training, as well as improving patient and staff experience and facilities, in orthopaedic surgery in Liverpool. Simon died on 8 February 2020 at the age of 65 and was survived by his wife Margaret (née Roebuck), their four daughters Emily, Madeleine, Rhiannon and Phyllida, five grandchildren and 250 trees.