Some losses are hard to bear when viewed in the mirror of one’s lifetime. This is clearly significant with the departure from this life of Victor Griffiths, so well known to me as a teacher, fellow surgeon and a most humane mentor throughout various stages of my surgical career.

My first acquaintance with him harks back to almost 60 years ago, when I, as a medical student, was taught anatomy when he was newly appointed to professorship of that discipline, a subject he instructed us with much self-assuredness, skill and lucidity. At the time, he was at the pinnacle of his surgical calling.

Throughout my later years, as a doctor and surgical trainee, when he succeeded the late A.J. Craig to the chair of surgery, what impacted on me was his brisk surgical skill, his forthright manner and a prodigious memory unequalled at the time. Although his presence commanded respect, he was approachable to all – patients students, doctors and nurses alike – when his attention and sense of fairness shone through.

Tributes and awards, both local and from abroad, he received in abundance and, of course, he deserved them. Principally, he has willed a testament of pioneering skills and a superbly organised Medical School.

With P.P. Debono and Craig, he will enter a Pantheon of surgical pathfinders who contributed substantially to the modern technical advances of general surgery as practised nowadays.

To his wife, Mary, a doctor like him, and all his family I offer my most sincere condolences and deepest sympathy while praying for his merited reward in heaven.