John Dormandy was born on 3 May 1937 in Budapest. He was the son of Paul Szeben, a pea grower who was accustomed to exporting his crop to the UK, and his wife Clara, who was an author and dramatist. He had a sister, Daisy, and his elder brother, Thomas, was to become a consultant chemical pathologist, renowned for his research on the actions of free radicals. The family were Jewish and went into hiding in 1944 when the Nazis invaded Hungary. After several months sheltering in a convent, they escaped to Geneva. In 1948 they made their way to London, where they settled and changed their surname to that of a village in Hungary which was 150 miles east of Budapest, where they had a country estate. John was educated in Hungary, Geneva and Paris before enrolling at London University to study medicine and graduating MB, BS in 1961. Apart from a spell as a registrar at the Royal Free, he was to spend most of his career at St George’s Hospital, progressing from lecturer in applied physiology to senior lecturer in surgery and, eventually, professor of vascular surgery. He was famous for his pioneering work investigating the diagnosis and treatment of peripheral artery diseases. Setting up a clinical trials unit at St George’s, he participated in numerous studies on the various treatments available for patients with critical limb ischaemia and was a vociferous campaigner for holistic therapy. A colleague referred to him as *an unusual surgeon* since he was keen to conserve affected limbs rather than *to correct [the problem] immediately with a knife*. Written with three co-authors, his book *Clinical haemorheology* (Springer, 1987) remains a standard work in the field. In the early 1990’s he was the first to advocate the use of specialist nurses to manage clinics for patients with chronic vascular disease and eventually this led to a nationwide network. He saw the benefits of multidisciplinary information sharing and was a leading figure in setting up the Trans-Atlantic Consensus for the management of peripheral artery disease (TASC) which published uniform guidelines in 2000. It was due to his personal involvement that so many vascular societies across Europe and North America collaborated in the research and adopted the recommendation. The author of five medical books and over 200 research papers, he continued to write and appear as an expert witness after his retirement in 2001. In the 1980’s, as his fame grew, he was called upon to deal with some high profile patients. Flown to Baghdad, he operated on the varicose veins of Saddam Hussein’s mother, to be rewarded with a gold watch which was later stolen. In 1983 he went to Libya where he is thought to have treated either Colonel Gaddafi himself or one of his advisors. John was said to be extremely angry that the large bill for this was never paid due to the row over the siege of the Libyan Embassy the following year. Due to his multicultural upbringing he was fluent in several languages. He was a popular and gregarious host, enjoying fine wines and good food often followed by a cigar. It was said that when he had to implement a no smoking policy as clinical director of St Georges he put a sign on his office door reading *You are now leaving the premises of St George’s Hospital*. A keen downhill skier, he also enjoyed playing golf and tennis and travelled at hair-raising speed round town on his beloved scooter. Other interests were art, architecture, theatre, opera and travelling – in retirement he published a book on his favourite part of France *A history of Savoy: gatekeeper of the Alps* (Fonthill, 2018). His wife, Klara, predeceased him in December 2018 and he died suddenly in Paris on 26 April 2019. He was survived by his children Alexis and Xenia and stepchildren Gaby and Alex. His brother Thomas predeceased him in 2013.