The attributes of a Master Surgeon

Abstract

This is the fourth Peter Paul Debono Memorial Lecture delivered under the auspices of the Association of Surgeons & Physicians. An appreciation and a detailed eulogy of the Maltese Master Surgeon P.P. Debono are well presented. As a lecturer and as a clinical demonstrator he was immensely popular and so felicitously did he combine intelligence with versatility that one learned from him much more than surgery. Everyone who worked with him knows that he was always in command of the situation, that he was never dismayed or distraught. He was original and `avant garde` in some of his concepts; he suspected the existence of the diabetic autonomic neuropathy that is such a 'new' topic these days. In communicating with patients or students he would put things in a nutshell, with terse and vivid expressions sometimes aphoristic in quality, but more often earthy and homely. As he often told the author, he "felt happier and safer handling a knife than a syringe."