Michael Patkin was a general surgeon at Whyalla Hospital, South Australia, who was recognised internationally for his pioneering and life-long work on surgical ergonomics, particularly for microsurgical and laparoscopic procedures. He was born in Melbourne on 22 May 1933, the son of Hemda and Benzion Patkin, and was educated at Melbourne Grammar School and Melbourne High School. He went on to study medicine at the University of Melbourne and at Prince Henry’s Hospital. He qualified in 1957. As a newly qualified surgeon in London in the 1960s, Patkin studied the human engineering work of E R Tichauer (USA), Etienne Grandjean (Switzerland) and others, and realised that applying these skills to surgery could result in safer, less traumatic and more efficient operating, benefitting patients and the health system in general. His first paper ‘The hand has two grips: an aspect of surgical dexterity’ appeared in the *Lancet* in 1965 (285 [7400] 1384-5). Returning to Australia, Patkin spent 30 years in solo surgical practice in the industrial city of Whyalla. Continuing research included hand function, tremor, access, handle design, lighting, theatre and instrument design. He wrote over 60 papers and book chapters on topics such as ergonomic aspects of surgical dexterity, ergonomics, engineering and surgery of endosurgical dissection, surgical heuristics and the design of operating theatres and instruments. This was the time of microsurgery and RSI (repetitive strain injury) problems, and Patkin was in demand to lecture on ergonomics to surgeons, industry leaders and others in Australia, New Zealand, the USA, South East Asia and Europe, while still maintaining his surgical practice and raising a young family. He was also appointed to honorary positions in the department of surgery at the University of Adelaide, the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Adelaide, and the department of surgery at Flinders University, Adelaide. He continued to lecture and teach, particularly to those learning the new keyhole surgery. He was also an adjunct professor of ergonomics in surgery at Macquarie University, Sydney. He was a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Australasia, England and Edinburgh, and a fellow and past president of the Ergonomics Society of Australia and New Zealand. In 1970 he won a Prince Philip Design Award for a needle-holder design. Following his retirement in 2000, Patkin was appointed as a Member of the Order of Australia for ‘service as a surgeon and to the study and practice of ergonomics’. Colleagues have described Patkin as an innovator, a great ambassador, and a wonderful thinker ‘whose profound insights live on in the minds of young surgeons’. Michael married Margaret Swain in 1961 in the Channel Islands and was the father of four children (Simon, Drusilla, John and Natasha) and a grandfather of six. He died on 4 April 2023 at the age of 89.