Sir Patrick McEwen Forrest was regius professor of clinical surgery at the University of Edinburgh. Pat, as he was known to all, was a giant of British and international surgery, and his contributions to the management of breast cancer were immense. He was born in Lanarkshire, the son of Andrew

Robert Mitchell qualified in Medicine at the University of Otago gaining the Gold Medal in Anatomy and the Senior Scholarship in Medicine. He undertook the BMedSci and his degree thesis, postnatal development in the rat adrenal, was published in 1948 and attracted interest. This demonstrated his ear