It was fifty years ago this month that a team of approximately 20 doctors and nurses gathered to watch Northern Ireland’s first hip replacement being performed by visiting Surgeon, Peter King, at Musgrave Park Hospital. Mr King was assisted by local Senior Trainee Surgeon, John Halliday and by Consultant Anaesthetist, John Alexander. Mr Halliday recalls that: “It was a new treatment we hadn’t had before which held out great promise to help a lot of people who were having very severe pain due to arthritis.” Since that morning in 1967, the Trust has performed the transformative operation on thousands of patients.