Martin Kelly

Martin Kelly, who has died suddenly of a heart condition at the age of 43, was a craniofacial plastic surgeon of enormous talent and dedication whose work won international recognition. He pioneered techniques that established him as a leader in the field of facial reconstruction. Not for nothing was he referred to as the king of rhinoplasty. However, newspaper stories concentrated on his celebrity clients, and so tended to overlook the more serious work that he carried out for the National Health Service and Facing the World, the charity that he and I founded.

His qualities first became apparent some 20 years ago, when, as a medical student, he came up after a lecture to say that he intended to pursue a career in plastic surgery. It was the first time I experienced Martin's resolve. He always did what he said he would do, and to an almost impossibly high standard.

Much later, during a break in a medical conference in Nice, I noted in the distance along the Promenade des Anglais the technique of an approaching Rollerblader. It turned out to be Martin: if there were things that he could not do well, I was not aware of them.

Martin was regarded as the outstanding trainee of his generation at St Bartholomew's hospital, London, graduating in medicine in 1989; he went on to learn reconstructive plastic surgery in London. After winning a scholarship, he spent two years in New York researching into microsurgery. Later, he spent a year in Paris working with one of the acknowledged, if unconventional, pioneers of facial reconstruction, Darina Krastinova.

In 2001, he joined me at the craniofacial plastic surgery unit at the Chelsea and Westminster hospital as a consultant. He was also appointed to the Royal Marsden, where he reconstructed the faces of patients after cancer surgery.

Martin combined a wealth of theoretical knowledge with a mature judgment. He combined three key abilities: a highly developed eye for the aesthetic, a willingness to plan meticulously, and the technical skill to achieve outstanding results consistently, even for the most challenging clinical problems. Those who worked with Martin in multidisciplinary teams were inspired by what could be achieved. He made us all want to be better surgeons by using his standards as a benchmark.

Patients liked him and trusted him because of his calm and reassuring bedside manner, leavened by his personal charm and an understated but well-developed sense of humour. In the field of teaching and research, he was inspirational and his lectures were renowned for their clarity and style. A presentation earlier this month to the American Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery in San Diego was greeted with adulation by fellow practitioners.

He and I travelled widely to developing countries to offer our services to those without access to medical care. It was while Martin was working in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, operating in a theatre with a shell hole in the wall, that he was introduced to a four-year-old Afghan girl, called Hadisa, who had a devastating congenital facial deformity.

We realised that such children had no prospect of first-class treatment in their own countries, and so in 2002 formed Facing the World. "We have to give something back," said Martin in explaining why he expended so much time and energy on the project. More than 30 children from around the world have since benefited from treatment by the charity, a testament to Martin's drive, determination and compassion.

He was born in London, the son of Bernard Hirigoyen, a French industrialist from a Basque background, and Diane Kelly, a member of an illustrious Irish family. He spent his early years in France until his parents separated. His redoubtable mother then brought him and his four sisters to London.

He attended Winchester college before going to Bart's. Once he became a consultant at Chelsea and Westminster, he dropped the Hirigoyen in favour of Kelly because he said his patients had difficulty saying and spelling the name.

In 1998 he married the actor Natascha McElhone, and they had two sons, Theodore, eight, and Otis, five. She is also pregnant with their third child, jokingly referred to by Martin as K3.

Roy Greenslade writes: To describe Martin as a brilliant surgeon, as he undoubtedly was, is to overlook the panoply of talents he possessed. I should declare a partiality. He was the husband of my stepdaughter Natascha, making me his stepfather-in-law, and I found Martin to be the most rounded human being I have ever known: he played every role in his all-too-short life with an uncompromising passion.

His dedication to the act of healing was unparalleled. He once showed me computer images that illustrated, step by step, how he had rebuilt the nose of a man who had it sliced off by a sword.

The work that gave him the greatest satisfaction was for Facing the World, but it would be wrong to see him as a do-gooder. His undoubted compassion was informed by a hard-headed and practical approach. He loved his work, not for itself, but for what it could achieve. To that end, he pushed himself very hard indeed, ceaselessly seeking to attain the highest possible standards. Indeed, that was how he lived every facet of his life.

Aside from surgery, Martin could have made his way in other fields too. He was a painter good enough to have been exhibited, an accomplished musician and a superb all-round sportsman who played a fierce game of tennis, rode fast and skied faster. Another friend nicknamed this renaissance man "Il Maestro".

Martin was both modest and shy, which people often mistook for aloofness. In all his activities, as with medicine, he was a perfectionist. I recall him putting up a swing in the garden of the Wiltshire cottage where he and Natascha were creating a rural haven for their two sons. It looked just right to me after his two hours of labour, but the following week he took it down and started all over again. It had not been perfect enough.

Though they had first met when Natascha was just 15, they did not get together until she was in her mid-20s. Theirs was an all-consuming love affair: each other's best friend, they dovetailed so well that they never had a single row. Natascha told me: "I still feel like the luckiest woman alive, even though he's not here. To have had 10 years of utter bliss waking up next to someone who made my heart flutter, I could never have wished for more."

One of her cousins remarked: "It is better to have lived like a lion for one day than a lamb for a hundred days." Martin was a lion of a man.

· Martin Bernard Hirigoyen Kelly, surgeon, born May 7 1965; died May 20 2008

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