My father, Richard Sanderson, who has died aged 63 after a hernia operation, exemplified the best qualities of a general practitioner. He was devoted to his patients, of whom there were tens of thousands over his 30 years in the same surgery in Drayton, Hampshire.
Richard was as focused on their health as emotional beings as he was on their physical problems. His dedication was admirable – not a single copy of the British Medical Journal arrived without being studied, annotated and filed.
He was born in Adelaide, South Australia, and emigrated to London with his family as a child. Richard managed to assimilate into British culture while still maintaining a distinctively Aussie laid-back attitude to life. He was educated at Christ's Hospital school, near Horsham, West Sussex, and then Trinity Hall, Cambridge.
Coming from august medical stock – his father Kenneth Sanderson was a professor of dermatology at St George's hospital, London – Richard forged his own path, treating people, not diseases. He was also a considerate and demanding trainer of young doctors, and many benefited from his guidance over the years. He was much admired by colleagues and patients and no other doctor's Christmas could have been blessed with so many bottles of Harvey's Bristol Cream.
Medicine was not his whole life. He was an accomplished musician (following in the footsteps of his mother, Ronda Gehling, who was one of Australia's most renowned pianists in the 1950s), who loved and feared his cello in equal measure. He was also a genuine renaissance man – equally at home discussing Euripides as epididymides.
He is survived by his second wife Jenny, my two sisters, Elly and Fran, and me.