Paul McMaster founded the liver transplant unit at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham with his physician colleague, Elwyn Elias. He was born in Liverpool on 4 January 1943, the son of James McMaster, a general practitioner, and Sarah Jane McMaster née Lynn, and studied medicine at Liverpool University, qualifying in 1966. After early training in Liverpool and at the Hammersmith Hospital, he was appointed as a surgical registrar to Roy Calne in Cambridge, which was to have a pivotal effect on his future career. His first consultant surgical post was in Cambridge, where his practice included renal and liver transplantation. This was a threshold time for transplantation in that the Cambridge team was the first to use a new immunosuppressive, cyclosporine, that dramatically improved survival after organ transplantation. This led to a significant expansion in transplant activity all over the world, particularly liver. When an opening appeared for a second transplant surgeon at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, he seized the opportunity with a clear plan to start liver transplantation there. As well as participating in the renal transplant programme, he performed several pancreas grafts for diabetics. His initial efforts to start a liver transplant programme in Birmingham were met with significant local resistance, however, both the initial success of the programme and the subsequent supra-regional funding that followed had a major benefit. Colleagues who had been less supportive initially came on board when they recognised the advantages a major liver programme would have to the hospital in terms of additional nurses, anaesthetists, ITU beds and many other supporting staff. Paul was able to provide many trainees with the experience to forge careers in liver transplantation. Liver transplantation requires significant manpower for both the donor and recipient procedures such that the programme was very dependent on the support from visiting overseas fellows. Many of these went on to support or even successfully start their own programmes in all parts of the globe. Birmingham participated in numerous clinical trials, and he made a significant contribution to the adoption of tacrolimus as a superior immunosuppressive agent when early trials suggested major toxicity. At that time levels were not being monitored and he subsequently showed that lower doses with later monitoring of levels provided improved graft survival. His contribution to teaching and training led to Birmingham University awarding him a personal chair in 1995, and they subsequently awarded him an honorary doctor of medicine degree in 2012. He showed international leadership qualities as one of the founders of the European Liver and Intestine Transplant Association and subsequently as president of the European Society of Transplantation. He retired from the NHS in 2003 and then forged a new career as a surgeon in the humanitarian field. Initially he trained in women’s fistula surgery in Uganda and Rwanda, but in 2005 he began working as a surgeon with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). He undertook assignments in several African countries including Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Somalia, also worked in Syria and Sri Lanka and was particularly active in Haiti after the earthquake in 2010. He then moved to MSF’s Amsterdam headquarters as surgical director, returning to the UK in 2012 to become the UK MSF president. He also took part in more field work, particularly in Syria again in 2013 and South Sudan in 2014. In later years he was active in his church and local communities. McMaster died on 27 May 2024 at the age of 81. Predeceased by his wife, Ruth (née Bryce), he was survived by their children Michael, Helen and Richard, a general practitioner.