Born of parents both surgeons I was destined to follow in family footsteps. Having qualified as a doctor, and thinking all that I had learned would be set in stone for my future career, it was nearly four years before I realised the fallacy of this concept. Open heart surgery, joint replacements and transplantation arrived. The scope of general surgery advanced enabling operations, previously too risky for patient survival, to be done. Fortune smiled on me while doing research enabling me to authenticate an examination which has led over the years to saving many hundreds of lives. Challenges for the surgeon and the patient, both physical and mental, are described. The author became one of the pioneers of Keyhole surgery in England successfully overcoming the challenge of taking up surgery in a totally different dimension. This has enabled patients and sportsmen to recover almost pain free in a third of the time taken with open operations.