Sri Skandarajah was a consultant general surgeon at Latrobe Regional Hospital, Gippsland, Victoria, Australia for 37 years. He made an outstanding contribution to medicine in the Latrobe Valley and the care of and kindness towards multigenerational families will be his legacy. Born on 18 August 1938 in Jaffna, Ceylon, towards the end of the British era, he was educated in English at Royal College, Colombo. He was an elite athlete and played badminton, basketball, hockey, tennis and athletics. In fact, it was a sporting injury to his toe which brought him to hospital for the first time and piqued his interest in all things medicine and surgery. He entered medical school in 1958, completing his MB BS at the University of Ceylon in 1963. Throughout this time, he was an excellent scholar but also maintained his passion for sport, culminating in him representing Ceylon as captain for the badminton and basketball teams at the Asian Games. Having started surgical training in Negombo, Ceylon, he married Savithri (Savi) in 1964 and emigrated to the UK in 1965. He obtained his primary at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland in 1966. His registrar training took him to posts throughout the Midlands, including Nottingham, Macclesfield, Burnley and Stourbridge, from which he sat and was successful in obtaining his fellowships of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (in 1967) and of England (in 1969). He was a true anglophile and always considered the UK a second home. However, the lure of a warmer climate and the desire to be closer to his family led Sri and Savi to emigrate to the Latrobe Valley, Victoria, Australia in 1970. Over his 37 years of practice and service to the Latrobe Regional Hospital, his initial phase also included orthopaedics, obstetrics and vascular surgery, but he truly specialised in general and laparoscopic surgery. He was forever the scholar and educator and was quick to adopt laparoscopic cholecystectomy and laparoscopic splenectomy in the 1990s. His colleagues report him to have been a true master surgeon and mentor. His students from Monash University recall him as a quiet, reserved man who was gentle, kind and calm. His patients remember him for his patience and having all the time in the world for them. Sri’s passion extended beyond surgery, and he was a serial hobbyist. He bred and showed cocker spaniels. He started painting and his work ranged from landscapes and portraits to abstracts. He was an obsessive and steadfast gardener and, when he finally retired in 2007, he needed to use his hands and extended this passion to bonsai, attending bonsai club classes and trading secrets about crafting beautiful bonsai. Although he came across as a shy and reserved man, those close to him knew how cheeky he could be. His highly intellectual side was balanced with a somewhat irreverent and bawdy sense of humour. His curious nature meant that he was a keen traveller and loved learning about other cultures. Sri and Savi were blessed to be able to travel extensively, especially after he retired, and one of his proudest adventures was returning to the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh to celebrate the quincentenary. Sri was a conservative man with ‘modern’ sensibilities. He was accepting of everyone – never judgmental about race, sexual identity or religion. Everyone was always welcome to the family home and everyone had to be fed! Sri was passionate about life and everything life had to offer. He was a faithful friend and adored his family. The sheer joy when his grandson Noah was born was palpable. Only a surgeon would think to purchase a plastic life-sized skeleton for his three-year old grandson and have it received with utter joy. Sri and Savi had two daughters, Angela and Anita. He valued education above all else: Angela, a lawyer, became chief executive officer of Development Victoria; Anita, a surgeon, is deputy director of general surgery at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. As his daughter, I can only share the values he imparted: ‘lead with kindness, live with passion and strive for excellence’.