Robert Scot Skirving completed a medical degree at Edinburgh University in 1881 and began practising medicine after he arrived in Australia. He became a highly-respected clinician with a long and distinguished medical career. He was a soldier in the South African War and World War I. He wrote Our Army in South Africa (1900) and Wire Splicing for Yachtsmen (1900). He also wrote many articles on medical and more general subjects in the Australian Medical Gazette and the Medical Journal of Australia. His numerous books related to the medical profession include Specialist and General Practitioners: Their Education and Relation to Each Other (1924) and The Story of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (1928).