I have attended innumerable sessions at countless conferences over my career but a late afternoon session on Wednesday 22 November 2023 at the Annual Scientific Meeting of the Vascular Society of Great Britain and Ireland at the Convention Centre in Dublin will live long in the memory. It ran from 17:00–18:30 hours in a packed Liffey Hall 2 and was entitled “The patient I cannot forget”. Four vascular surgeons described their experience of a patient who had left them with feelings of which they had not been able to fully let go. The four surgeons were Rachel Bell, Ian Loftus, Becky Sandford and Ross Davenport. Rachel and Ian are vascular surgeons of international renown, both past presidents of the Vascular Society, whilst Becky and Ross are younger consultants in the earlier part of their career but both with extensive training and experience. Telling the story of the four cases was clearly traumatic and there were tears, tissues and soul searching. Two cases involved paediatric trauma, one iatrogenic in an unfamiliar environment. Two cases involved prolonged attempts at limb revascularisation where nothing seemed to go to plan, and the final case outlined the stresses and anxieties of being involved in a coroner’s case. I have never experienced open, honest, transparent reporting of raw, emotional cases in this way.