David Pothier was a consultant otologist at Toronto General Hospital, Canada. He was born in Cape Town, South Africa, the son of an ENT surgeon. His father developed a national system for supporting deaf children and those needing hearing aids that continues to help thousands of underprivileged South Africans to this day. Not always the most attentive student at his Catholic College, David developed a keen interest in becoming a doctor second and a mountaineer first: he became a champion in one of the most athletically demanding sports in the world, something that those who only knew him from his later, voluntary exercise-free, years often found hard to imagine. After qualifying in medicine at Cape Town University, he gained a place on the south west ENT training programme in the UK, where he rapidly demonstrated leadership qualities and research awareness far ahead of his peers. He gained an MD degree, and developed a vibrant research network amongst his fellow trainees, making the south west one of the most productive in terms of trainee research in the UK. His mind was so far ahead of the rest of us that he was even able to provide mentorship and research guidance to his consultant supervisors and became a light within the Otorhinolaryngological Research Society. In 2008, he gained a prestigious fellowship award to spend time training in neuro-otology at the world’s leading centre in Toronto, Canada. So impressive was he as a fellow, that he was rapidly marked as a potential recruit, and indeed was persuaded (without too much trouble) to stay on. He blossomed in the role of consultant and junior professor at the University of Toronto, pioneering, together with the visionary ear surgeon Muaaz Tarabichi, endoscopic ear surgery. He was a founder, and was president when he passed away, of the world endoscopic ear surgery organisation, the International Working Group on Endoscopic Ear Surgery. David was a phenomenal judge of character and could weigh somebody up from seconds of observation or snatches of conversation, with laser-guided accuracy. David’s mentorship came with a clarity that knifed through the turgid barriers that mediocre people, bureaucrats and mundane organisations impose on people with vision. Moreover, he showed us how to do amazing things with both conviction and humour in equal parts; the yin and yang of change. David was a champion for the most side-lined of ENT patients, those with dizziness. He established a unique multidisciplinary approach, including routine input from specialist psychiatrists, a world first. He developed a cost-effective balance assessment system (vestio) with his friend, Cian Hughes, now a scientist with Google. With Jane Lea, an audiologist from Vancouver, he put together his combined experiences and research into a unique book on vestibular disorders (*Vestibular disorders: advances in oto-rhino-laryngology* Karger, 2018). David Pothier died on 27 July 2018 at the age of 44 from brain cancer, and was survived by his wife Louise and son James. The little world of ENT surgery will miss him hugely, but to have had him in our ranks, for even such a brief, shimmering time, has helped make the lives of thousands with ENT problems more tolerable, and inspired science that will help and cure millions more in decades to come.