David Maisels was a consultant plastic surgeon in Liverpool. He was born on 23 November 1924 in Johannesburg, South Africa. His father, Israel Maisels, was the first urologist in South Africa and a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh; his mother was Fanny Beatrice Maisels née Marks, a housewife. He attended the King Edward VII School in Johannesburg and then, in 1944, at the age of 18, joined the South African Artillery and served in Italy and in Egypt. He was decorated on four occasions. Following his demobilisation, he studied medicine at Edinburgh University, as his father had done before him, and qualified in 1951. He held junior posts in general medicine and surgery in Edinburgh, and then went back to South Africa, where he was a surgical registrar and lecturer to dental students at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. He returned to Scotland, to Glasgow, to start his training in plastic surgery, followed by positions at Mount Vernon Hospital, London and in Salisbury. He was a senior registrar in plastic surgery in Liverpool and obtained a RW Johnson fellowship in Miami with Ralph Millard, the pioneering cleft lip and palate surgeon. He was then appointed as a consultant in Liverpool and as a lecturer in plastic surgery at the University of Liverpool. He was also a member of the postgraduate advisory panel in general surgery. He took an extremely active part in the British Association of Plastic Surgeons (BAPS). He was one of the first secretaries of the BAPS research committee and was elected to the council first in1970 and again, for a second time, in 1974. He was subsequently elected president in 1986. He was also a member of the British Society for Surgery of the Hand and an adviser for the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh for Merseyside. He published more than 60 papers and chapters in books. He was a member of the national research committee of the *British Journal of Plastic Surgery* and a member of the editorial committee of *Hand*. At the British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons he was awarded the Kay Kilner prize in 1966 for his paper on the surgery of alveolar cleft repair and the Mowlem award in 1970. He was well respected as a very skilled surgeon and teacher. David married Catriona Margaret Dempster, a Scottish paediatrician in 1956. She was a great support to David but sadly predeceased him in 2022. They had two children, Fiona, a conservation scientist, and Duncan, an outdoor educator and guide. David died on 13 November 2023 at the Western General Hospital in Edinburgh. He was 97. He was a stalwart of British plastic surgery and will be sorely missed.