Jeff Dolphin was a senior consultant surgeon in Walsall. He was born on 11 October 1929 in Aldridge in the West Midlands, the son of Raymond Dolphin and Joyce Dolphin née Phipps. He grew up in Harborne, Birmingham and was educated at King Edward VI Five Ways School and King Edward’s School, Edgbaston. His father was a research scientist who was keen for Jeff to study metallurgy, however, influenced by his future wife, Peggy (Margaret) Checkland, whose ambition was to go into nursing, Jeff chose to study chemistry, physics and biology in what was called the ‘medical sixth’. After qualifying at the University of Birmingham in 1952, he undertook his house officer posts at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, where he became a temporary demonstrator in anatomy and obtained the primary fellowship examination. After this he took a short service commission in the Royal Medical Army Corps between 1954 and 1957. He spent most of his service in the British Army of the Rhine, firstly as medical officer to the Scots Guards and the 4th Guards Brigade, then as a junior surgeon at the British Military hospitals in Münster and Mönchengladbach. Jeff worked at the Birmingham Accident Hospital and Birmingham Children’s Hospital in senior surgical registrar posts and, in 1960, he passed his fellowship exams as a surgeon. He joined Walsall Hospital in 1964 as a consultant surgeon, one of only three in Walsall. The position involved an interest in vascular surgery, and Jeff was entrusted with this specialty, being the first surgeon with this training in the group. This also involved setting up a radiology service for arteriology and nurse training in the care of such patients. Jeff was involved in the femoropopliteal bypass trial organised jointly between the United Birmingham Hospitals and Charing Cross Hospital. When Jeff first arrived at Walsall, his word for the hospital was ‘deprived’. Over his 28 years there he saw the number of consultants double and throughout his career he saw the nature of patients undergoing surgery change. As a junior doctor he had seen TB patients treated surgically, although suitable medication had been available since 1947. In 1964 there were many patients with peptic ulcers who were treated with surgery rather than medication and he saw a big change in the move away from radical surgery for breast cancer to treatment with chemotherapy and, later, radiotherapy. In his specialised field Jeff found the new procedures, developed in the USA during the 1960s, hugely beneficial, with radiologists dilating and making passageways through arteries, reducing the need for invasive surgery. When he retired he could clearly see the potential for laparoscopic procedures and the importance of developments in ultrasound scanning and computer tomography to provide accurate diagnoses. Since 1966 Jeff was involved in helping ENT colleagues in the management of carcinoma of the pharynx and upper oesophagus. This included repairing the pharyngeal defect using the vascular pedicle graft. This type of work was very new at the time and was only carried out at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and between Walsall and Birmingham ENT Hospital. The new out-patient department at Walsall was opened in 1973 and Jeff oversaw the development of the operational plan for the surgical day unit. For the last 11 years of his career he was the senior consultant surgeon. He averaged 800 operations a year, which gives a total based on 28 years at Walsall of 22,400. In addition, he saw an average 100 patients a week in clinics – 112,000 during his time in Walsall. He also saw private patients at home. In addition to his work as a surgeon, Jeff served as chairman of the surgical division, chairman of the senior staff committee, a consultant member of the unit management team, chairman of the medical executive committee and as a member of the chief officer group of the district health authority. He acted as a clinical tutor for the Royal College of Surgeons of England and served on the national training committee. He was an active member of the Vascular Surgical Society of Great Britain and Ireland, and the Association of Surgeons in Great Britain and Ireland, where he spoke at a London meeting on the possible dangers to the ureter of chemical sympathectomy. Peggy did become a nurse and in 1953 they married. They had four children and four grandchildren. Peggy died in December 2019. Jeff’s interests included golf, modern languages and travelling. Many happy holidays were spent caravanning on the continent and in the UK. He loved France and the Lake District. Peggy and Jeff spent their honeymoon in the Lakes and enjoyed many years walking the fells. Jeff was an avid reader. His choice of reading material was vast – including novels (he read War and Peace twice!), French literature and autobiographies, and he had a particular interest in history. He always seemed to retain whatever he had read. His other passion was gardening and, just before he died, he was delighted that the garden at his home had just been accepted into the National Open Garden Scheme. During the Coronavirus pandemic, Jeff became an NHS responder, phoning people who were feeling isolated and offering his support. He felt it was something he could do to help, and he did it brilliantly with care and compassion. This was the way he was throughout his career: Jeff genuinely cared about his patients. He always emphasised the importance of listening carefully to what they told him to help him make a diagnosis.