Bruce Sinclair-Smith was born in Brisbane on 24 December 1919. He was educated at Geelong Grammar School where he was an excellent student and a school prefect. He studied medicine at the University of Sydney graduating with honours in 1943. He was an RMO at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital from 1943 to 1945 leaving there to join the AAMC. After discharge from the Army in 1947 he became the first Royal Prince Alfred Hospital Travelling Research Scholar to the Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore. He spent two years working in Cardiology before moving to a registrar position at the National Hospital for Diseases of the Heart in London where he remained until 1951. In that year he took his Edinburgh membership and, more importantly, married the charming Anne Roberstson-Palmer of Baltimore.

In 1951 Dr Sinclair-Smith returned to Australia as the research director of the Hallstrom Institure of Cardiology, a position he held until 1958. He obtained his Australasian membership in 1952. In 1956 he became an assistant honorary physician at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and a tutor in medicine at the University of Sydney. During these years he was the assistant honorary secretary of the editorial committee of the College from 1954 to 1957 and a member of the committee from 1957 to 1960. He was a member of the state committee from 1958 to 1960. He became a foundation member of the Cardiac Society in 1952. In 1959 he was selected as the medical director of the Life Insurance Medical Research Fund of Australia and New Zealand and in 1960 he was elected a fellow of the Edinburgh College.

In 1960 he moved to the United States to take up appointments as associate professor of medicine to Vanderbilt University, Nashville and clinical professor of medicine at Melarry Medical College, Nashville, working there under Professor Elliot Newman and Professor Godfried Freisinger. He became a fellow of the American College of Cardiology in 1968 and of the American College of Physicians in 1969. His Australasian fellowship was granted in 1966. He was a fellow of the Council of Clinical Cardiology of the American Heart Association. From 1977 to 1980 he was Visiting Professor of Medicine in Ischaemic Disease at the University of Capetown, South Africa, working with Professor Opie. He retired from Vanderbilt in 1980 to live in South Annapolis, Maryland, but continued to teach part-time at the Johns Hopkins Medical School until his death on 1 January 1985.

Bruce was by nature a reserved person but possessed a great deal of charm. He and Anne were gracious hosts in their homes in Sydney, Nashville and South Annapolis. They were a happy family. Their one daughter Susie is now a law graduate, a source of pride and joy to her father. A keen reader and lover of books, he made a particular study of American History. Ornithology was another absorbing interest from his schooldays. He sailed small boats with considerable enthusiasm and some skill. In all he was a fine physician and cardiologist and added considerably to the academic standards of the institutions in which he served.