“What’s a Festschrift?” my youngest asks.

“In German it means ‘celebration writing’,” I say, “I’m going to an academic conference to honour a doctor.”

The notion of voluntary learning prompts an eye roll from his teenage sister: “Can’t say I relate.”

An eminent surgeon is retiring after 50 years of public service. All too often we allow such contributors to fade away without notice, so the acknowledgment arranged by one of his colleagues is noteworthy.

How to celebrate a man whose career spans half a century, hundreds of publications, seminal textbooks, an eponymous operation, military deployment, developing world aid, international renown, prolific musicality, teaching, training and mentoring? In the same way you eat an elephant: piece by piece.

Intellectual contributions are commingled with personal memories. One speaker recalls an era when everyone smoked but the surgeon stood apart. A female colleague invokes his championing of the first female surgeons in the south Pacific. Surgeons from the defence forces laud his staunch commitment to service, not only to his own country but also those plundered by war and destitution.

Every speaker has a story about finding a way........

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