David Watkin was a consultant surgeon at Leicester Royal Infirmary and a former president of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland. Born on 10 July 1935, the son of Francis John Lloyd Arthur ‘Frank’ Watkin, a banker, and Mary Watkin née Nichols, a schoolteacher, he spent his early years in Shrewsbury before the family moved to Rhyl and finally settled in Wrexham. Aged 12 he won a scholarship to board at St Edward’s, Oxford. While there, as well as opting for sciences in preference to Greek or German, he learned to sail – a hobby which became a lifelong passion. After considering various careers including farming, architecture and joining the Royal Navy, he chose medicine. The day before he was due to travel to Cambridge to take the scholarship examination, he sustained an injury while playing rugby. In considerable pain, he visited the school doctor, who dismissed his complaint as a ‘twisted hip’. In his room at Christ’s College that evening, he had right renal colic and blood-stained urine and made his first diagnosis, of a right kidney injury. He did not seek medical advice and never told the school doctor of his error. He was delighted to be offered a place at Cambridge University medical school. Three years later, in autumn 1956, David enrolled at Westminster Hospital Medical School, rotating between different surgical and medical firms. While at Westminster, he won the prize for obstetrics after delivering more than 40 babies, and met his future wife, fellow student Elisabeth Appleby, who became a consultant radiologist. He was a house surgeon at Westminster Hospital, a house physician at Kingston Hospital and then a senior house officer in the accident and emergency and orthopaedic departments at Kingston. Then the newly married couple moved to Bristol, where David became a senior house officer at Bristol Royal Infirmary. After the birth of their first child, the family moved to Leicester, where he had secured a registrar’s post in general surgery at Leicester Royal Infirmary. Senior registrar posts at Derbyshire Royal Infirmary and Sheffield Royal Hospital followed. He became a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1962. In his book, *A surgeon’s lifetime: evolution in general surgery 1959-2001*, David describes the ‘bad old days’ of house jobs in teaching hospitals, with pre-registration house officers on duty 24 hours a day for six months with one weekend off in the middle. Despite having acquired extensive clinical and operative experience, he was critical of the ‘see one, do one, teach one’ methodology of the time and felt that the training he received was inadequate. ‘The number of operations for which a consultant directly supervised me could be counted on the fingers of one hand,’ he said. When he took up his consultant post in general surgery at Leicester Royal Infirmary in 1971, David was determined to provide better training for his own staff – including nurses and operating department assistants as well as doctors and medical students – and worked tirelessly to improve their experience. He lived through a period of vast change in clinical practice, technology and hospital management. He was first and foremost dedicated to doing his best for his patients. Second came his role as teacher: he led by example, passing on his knowledge and experience to everyone with whom he worked. He enjoyed the broad scope of general surgery, including emergencies, and as surgery evolved into specialties, he became a coloproctologist by day while remaining a generalist at night. Serving as president of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland from 2000 to 2001 was a highlight of his career. This role followed a series of appointments, the first of which – as inaugural clinical sub-dean for the new Leicester medical school, which opened in 1975 – gave him free rein to set up clinical training, including designing the course, allocating clinical attachments, running the exams and caring for the students. The arrangements he put in place remained largely unchanged for about 15 years. David retired in 2000, although he continued to be involved in training and education. In 2016, he joined other retired doctors to pose clinical hypotheses for Leicester medical school students. He enjoyed this so much he continued to participate online during the covid pandemic lockdowns. David Watkin died on 14 July 2024, aged 89. He was survived by his wife, their three children: Andrew, Sally and Clare; and four grandchildren.