Paul Hurst was a consultant general and vascular surgeon at the Royal Sussex County Hospital, Brighton. He was born on 9 August 1946 and was brought up in Essex on the London borders, industrious and with fine academic ability and musical talents. He studied medicine at St Mary’s Hospital Medical School and was awarded a physiology BSc degree and qualified in 1970. After house jobs, he was a trainee at Basildon and moved to St Thomas’ Hospital as a rotating surgical registrar having achieved the FRCS (in 1974), but also the MRCP, something of which he was forever proud. Paul then spent over two years as a lecturer on the academic surgical unit, which was regarded as an absolute necessity for a young surgeon to progress and impress at that time. He was important in the invention of an experimental operation with J B Kinmonth, designed to reduce lower limb lymphoedema – ‘the mesenteric bridge’, transplanting lymphatics from ileal and mesenteric tissues, bypassing the iliofemoral blockage. He submitted his successful MS thesis in April 1979. He was a thoroughly experienced old fashioned senior registrar for several years, as was usual at that time, and was appointed to Brighton as a highly skilled consultant surgeon. Paul was thrilled and not just a little amused to be based in a colourful Kemptown, with a contemporary, diverse population, in a large hospital with excellent colleagues, and able to live in rural Sussex. As a general and vascular surgeon, he will be fondly remembered for his great care of his patients, his attention to detail, his diagnostic clinical skills, his teaching, his patience, wit and humour. Primarily, Paul enjoyed being a district general hospital surgeon; he never had ambitions for teaching hospital life nor to work in a city. He found it ironic that Brighton would become a university teaching hospital and the medical school one of the most popular in the UK – let alone Brighton and Hove being awarded city status in 2001! He always enjoyed teaching and was as an examiner for the FRCS and the medical school. A certificate hangs in his house, Lower Lodge, recognising him in the top teacher awards by the students as best overall teacher, which was repeated year on year, recognising his inspirational style. He prized teamwork and the surgical firm and was dismayed by its deconstruction and new working patterns. He deplored the recent changes and what he saw as the loss of stature in the role of a consultant in modern Britain. In 2003 Paul was elected president of the surgery section of the Royal Society of Medicine (RSM). His masterful academic year included the traditional president’s speech ‘A view from the beach’, illustrated with numerous quirky cartoons. He was active in the RSM, the Vascular Society, the Surgical 60 Travelling Club, the local Med-Chi Society and the Jaguar XK Club. In his own time, he enjoyed watching sport on his state-of-the-art television and sound system, which had every conceivable optional extra, but with impossible to understand multiple remote controls. His favourite relaxation perhaps was being at his Cornwall home overlooking St Michael’s Mount, watching barn owls, deer, buzzards and rabbits, when he would reminisce. Paul was enormous fun to travel with – he had witty views on everything, a certain irreverent humour with spontaneous quips. He was fond of loud rhythmic music, especially around the safari campfire, but most recently at the Rio Carnival. He relished an outstandingly successful tiger safari, part of which was completed on elephant back. He enjoyed the thrill of flying in a balloon or in a helicopter without doors. He was delighted with snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef, nattily dressed in wetsuit and fins; he found the attached prescription face mask gave him better sight underwater than he had through normal spectacles, so threatened to wear the mask from then on! Paul’s sad diagnosis of Alzheimer’s came on very slowly and he would often talk about it. He well knew his ultimate fate. His wife’s fortitude throughout was admirable. Paul died on 7 September 2023 at the age of 77 and was survived by his wife Sandra (née McNeill), twins Lucy and Alex, and five grandchildren. A memorial service was held for him at All Saints’, Laughton, East Sussex in October 2023. The admiration and respect for this talented late friend, polymath, vascular surgeon, teacher, artist, musician, motoring enthusiast, fisherman, ornithologist, raconteur and wit, and, above all, family man, was enthusiastically celebrated. A picture was painted of a busy man, recounting amusing stories of life and surgery, sculpting a lifelike bust, creating a stunning painted artwork, extravagantly illustrating a set of surgical operation records, or doodling a candid cartoon of one of his friends. The world has lost a great family man, friend, colleague and surgeon.