John Alistair McArthur was a general surgeon in Armadale, Victoria, Australia. He was born in Melbourne on 3 December 1926, the son of George Alexander Douglas McArthur, an ENT surgeon, and Helen Fraser McArthur née Piggott. He attended Geelong Grammar School and served as a private in the Second Australian Imperial Force. He then studied medicine at the University of Melbourne, qualifying in 1951. As a student, he represented his university at athletics. He gained his FRCS in 1959 and his FRACS in 1960. He held posts at the Queen Victoria Medical Centre, Melbourne and was a surgical tutor at Monash University. He was also a senior visiting specialist in surgery in the Department of Veterans’ Affairs. In 1967, he led a civilian surgical team from Prince Henry’s Hospital which went to South Vietnam. Outside medicine he enjoyed photography, bushwalking, bird watching and sailing. In November 1955, he married Sally Barbara Carr, a nursing sister and officer manager. They had three children – Jane, Clare and Christopher – and four grandchildren, Christopher, Sophie, Cameron and Lachlan. He died on 22 November 2014 at the age of 87.