David Gwyn Thomas was a consultant urologist on the spinal injuries unit at Lodge Moor Hospital, Sheffield. He was born in Wells, Somerset on 22 February 1939, the only child of William David Thomas and Hannah Thomas née Thomas, who were Welsh. He was a talented academic, sportsman and pianist who obtained a scholarship to read medicine at Middlesex Hospital in 1957. There he met his future wife, Eileen Hughes, a student nurse at University College Hospital. He worshipped with Eileen at Westminster Chapel under the pastor, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, developing a deep and abiding faith and a passionate commitment to the NHS, which shaped his later career. After qualifying as a surgeon and specialising in urology, David worked as a houseman and a senior registrar in Kettering and Birmingham, before moving with Eileen to Sheffield in 1965. After a year in Exeter, David and his young family moved back to Sheffield in 1969, where he was to practise until his retirement in 2002. David’s consultant career in Sheffield was spent on the spinal injuries unit at Lodge Moor Hospital. There he made significant improvements in the bladder management of the patients and rapidly became established as an international authority on the neuropathic bladder, with visiting professorships in Australia, China, Hong Kong and Sweden. He established the annual spinal injuries course, a must for urology trainees, which combined insightful didactic teaching, an obligatory curry night and wheelchair basketball for all participants! Due recognition followed with the award of the St Peter’s medal, the British Association of Urological Surgeons’ highest award, and latterly an honorary fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians. A great raconteur, his commitment to teaching continued long after his retirement in 2002. Despite the irony of developing a partial tetraplegia from metastatic prostate cancer, David’s room at St Luke’s Hospice was a joyous meeting place for family, friends, colleagues and patients. He died on 15 August 2018 at the age of 79 and was survived by his wife Eileen, children – Martyn, Kate and Alex – and grandchildren.