Brian Ellis was a consultant surgeon at Ashford Hospital, Middlesex. He was of the old school, where general and urological surgery could still be practised as a consultant, although with the separation of urology from general surgery he subsequently became a urologist. Brian was always ahead of his time, both in his clinical behaviour and academic ideas. He was not only an excellent general and urological surgeon, as could be attested by his patients and colleagues, but also an outstanding teacher of all his many surgical trainees now working around the UK and overseas. Furthermore, he was uniformly kind and fair to everyone in the workplace: supportive, encouraging and thoughtful. As a result, Brian was the kind of surgeon everyone wanted to model themselves on. In the academic arena, Brian cut his teeth in the challenging environment of the academic surgical unit at St Mary’s Hospital, London under the eagle eye of Hugh Dudley. His academic pursuits continued throughout his surgical career, in many cases a decade or more ahead of the current surgical practice. Among these were early computer programming, with the development of a computerised audit programme, which provided coded operation details and discharge summaries; and an understanding of the importance of human factors in surgical performance and personality assessment in surgical training and assessment. Perhaps Brian’s decision to study medicine and his long-term success in medical publishing came from his parents; his father, Frank Albert Ernest Ellis, was a newspaper executive and his mother, Beryl Christine Ellis née Holdsworth, a nurse. His early education was at St Bede’s Preparatory School in Eastbourne and then Harrow. Brian went to St Mary’s Hospital Medical School in Paddington, London in 1965, qualifying in 1970. He did his surgical house jobs with the famous orthopaedic team of John Crawford Adams and George Bonney at St Mary’s, before going to Salisbury for his medical post. After returning to St Mary’s, Harrow Road for a senior house officer post in the accident and emergency department, he started his long and fruitful relationship with Hugh Dudley, initially as a senior house officer in 1974 and then as a research fellow from 1975 to 1976, when he looked into the physiology of sleep and its effect on performance, and the detection of central line sepsis in patients receiving total parenteral nutrition. After completing his research, Brian moved to Ashford Hospital in Middlesex in 1976, then back to St Mary’s in 1977 to work for Geoffrey Glazer and Harold Nixon (at Paddington Green Children’s Hospital), before going to the Queen Elizabeth II Hospital in Welwyn Garden City in 1978 to work for Gordon Cassie. He finally returned to St Mary’s as a senior registrar from 1979 to 1982, working again for Geoffrey Glazer, and on this occasion the two urologists, Michael Snell and Ross Witherow. He finished his senior registrar training on the vascular unit working for Averil Mansfield and John Wolfe. In 1983 Brian returned to Ashford Hospital in Middlesex as a consultant general and urological surgeon. Brian continued his long and fruitful relationship with Hugh Dudley throughout this time and thereafter, continuing the development of his computerised surgical audit system, subsequently developed commercially as ‘Micromed’ and used widely in surgical units throughout the UK. As his surgical registrar in Ashford in 1988, I remember visiting Biggin Hill with Brian to see how the RAF selected and assessed their pilots and discussing with him how some of the principles around human factors and non-technical skills used in aviation might be used in surgery to improve team performance and surgical outcomes – another example of how far ahead Brian’s thinking was in relation to standard surgical processes at the time. It took another 20 years before the importance of non-technical skills in surgical performance were recognised by the surgical community at large. Brian continued his other academic interests in Ashford, developing a diagnostic urological ultrasound training programme for urologists, resulting in him being appointed as a visiting professor at Middlesex University. His long list of publications attested to his lifelong academic interests, and his long-term relationship with Hugh Dudley culminated in him taking over the editorship of *Hamilton Bailey’s emergency surgery* (Oxford, Butterworth-Heinemann) for the 12th edition in 1995 and then co-editing the 13th edition (London, Arnold) in 2000 with myself. In Ashford and St Peter’s Chertsey (they joined in 1999) Brian undertook a large number of clinical and management positions and was their clinical lead in human factors training, organising the winning of the *Hospital Doctor* team of the year award in 1998. Brian was an active member of the British Association of Urological Surgeons, sitting on the council and several of their sub-committees. He was co-editor of the *Journal of Integrated Care* and in 2009 became clinical adviser to the Swinfen Trust – a medical charity which provides email help and support to doctors in developing countries. He became a member of the Travelling Surgical Society of Great Britain and Ireland in 2006. Brian retired from clinical practice in 2012, when he put much time and energy into designing and building, with his wife Loveday, their beautiful house and garden in Tangley, Andover. Brian first met Loveday Pusey when she was the night sister on the professorial surgical wards at St Mary’s Hospital and they married in 1976. They had two children, Rebecca and David, and two grandchildren. Brian undoubtedly enjoyed the good things in life – especially good wine and malt whisky. He was also a very keen and accomplished photographer, even buying a drone to improve his aerial photography of his own and neighbours’ houses! Brian died on 23 December 2018 at the age of 71. All who knew him, either socially or at work, were greatly saddened to hear of his death and will miss his huge capacity for enjoying all the good things in life, his big heart and his overwhelming desire to support, encourage and improve the lives of everyone with whom he came into contact. He was a giant of a man in every way, and as a surgeon and surgical trainer will always be remembered as a true leader, a great clinician and teacher, and a wonderful friend.