Alan McKinna was a consultant surgeon at the Royal Marsden Hospital, London. He was born on 13 August 1932 in Nottinghamshire, the youngest son of two GPs, Eva McKinna née Young and Henry Drummond McKinna. His father died suddenly at the age of 40, leaving his mother to bring up her sons while she continued as a doctor. He was educated at West Bridgford Grammar School, Nottinghamshire, and then studied medicine at St Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical School, qualifying in 1956. His brother also studied medicine and became a GP in Canada. He was appointed as a consultant surgeon at the Royal Marsden Hospitals in 1972 and also became an honorary surgeon to the Chelsea Hospital for Women, where he spent the next 20 years. His major interest was in the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer and he became a Hunterian professor at the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1989 with a lecture entitled ‘The earlier diagnosis of breast cancer – a 20-year experience at the Royal Marsden’. His busy private practice was in Kensington and at the Cromwell Hospital. He felt privileged to have his appointments, and enjoyed the national and international contacts and opportunities in his field that this enabled, for example supporting the now renowned tamoxifen prevention trial. He also strongly championed the early diagnostic breast unit at the Royal Marsden, a forerunner of today’s fast track diagnostic clinics. His team, his friends and family knew and respected his strong sense of duty and care to his patients. Many of these patients kept in contact with him long after his retirement, as did his junior staff. A close medical oncology colleague said of him that: ‘He was one of the kindest and most gentle colleagues I ever knew, always putting his patients first, and of course they all adored him. He was a wonderful and favourite colleague to work with – he wasn’t just caring, but he was enthusiastic and supportive of new ideas and a dedicated collaborator in all our trials. He was particularly instrumental in advocating our neoadjuvant programme at the start, when most of his colleagues were aggressively critical and we could never have made the progress we did without him.’ He was a notoriously poor timekeeper, with most outpatient clinics and theatre sessions finishing late, particularly on a Friday evening, which would often cause considerable but predictable stress all round, only to be quelled by an invitation to the local pub. Despite his poor relationship with the clock, he felt strongly about supporting his whole team, and loved to find an excuse for a good party at a good venue, be it a restaurant, art gallery or the Chelsea Physic Garden, inviting as many as he could as a ‘thank you’ for going above and beyond with him. He was a remarkable mentor and fine example and embodied all that is good about the doctor-patient relationship. Surgically he had a wide repertoire, favouring conservation in breast cancer, but well able to perform staging laparotomies, thyroidectomies and whatever was directed his way at the Marsden, and indeed at the Chelsea next door. He was an active member of the Chelsea Clinical Society and the British Breast Group, and a mover and shaker in writing guidelines in the management of breast cancer for the Marsden. In many ways he was ahead of his time, although he would not have considered himself a trail blazer. He trained numerous junior surgical oncologists, many now senior or retired, and many remember him fondly for his great interest in their own careers, which he would support and develop, for instance by sending them overseas to visit the great cancer centres in the USA or by setting them projects for presentation and publication. After retirement, having been pre-deceased by his youngest daughter Lucy, he and his wife Marilyn, whom he had met at Barts, moved to Winchelsea, which they made their home for the next 25 years. Alan embraced retirement and became a keen gardener, as well as being actively involved in the local art group, the literary and historical societies, and devoted to the local church. He was mayor of Winchelsea in 2007 and relished being an active member of the parish. He was a loving father to his three remaining children Andrew, Fiona and James, and grandfather to his three grandsons Tom, James and Nick. One daughter and one grandson have followed him in medical careers. In his later years, he cared selflessly for his wife with severe dementia, who survives him. He collapsed and died suddenly, on 12 December 2020, on his way to church with his wife. He was 88.