Patrick Fraser Howden, known as Pat, was a surgeon in Auckland, New Zealand and a team leader of the New Zealand Civilian Surgical Team during the Vietnam War. He was born on 31 May 1913. His father, also Patrick Fraser Howden, was a doctor; his mother was Joyce Campion Howden née Hislop. Howden studied medicine at Otago and qualified in 1940. He was a doctor at Auckland Hospital and then joined the New Zealand Medical Corps on 7 January 1941. He was officially entered on the New Zealand Expeditionary Force nominal roll in the second quarter of 1941, as a lieutenant in the 14th Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment. The regiment served in North Africa until the Desert Air Force achieved control of the skies over Egypt and Libya. In late 1943 he was appointed medical officer of the Divisional Cavalry in North Africa, with the rank of captain, part of the regimental staff as it prepared for the invasion in Italy. He served as medical officer during the major engagements of the Italy campaign and was promoted to major in November 1944. After the war he carried out further training in the UK, where he was a surgical registrar at the London Chest Hospital and then a senior registrar at Bradford Royal Infirmary. He gained his fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1948. He returned to Auckland, where he was a surgeon at Middlemore Hospital. He became a fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons in 1958. During the Vietnam War he was a doctor and team leader of the New Zealand Civilian Surgical Team from December 1964 to March 1966 and then again in July 1966 for a shorter tour. He received the Order of Merit 1st Class Chuong My. Howden died in 1996.