“How does it feel to be so small?” This question was addressed to Stig on the day of his retirement, when a couple of hundred people had assembled to acknowledge his skilful work over the years. “I don’t understand what you mean”, was the reply. “It's you guys who are unnecessarily tall.” Stig was born in 1927 and started his medical career as a surgeon in the north of Sweden. He came to Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Göteborg in 1962 at the age of 35. Here, he started working in internal medicine but switched to cardiology in 1963 and continued as a cardiologist at this hospital until he retired in 1992.