Hyder Ismail Sheikh was born on 5 April 1931 at Shahada, Maharashtra, India and educated at the University of Bombay, where he graduated in 1956 with first-class honours in medicine and surgery. After holding house appointments at the Jamsetji Jeejeebhoy Hospital, Bombay, he came to England and was elected senior house officer at the Victoria Hospital, Blackpool in 1959. Later he held house or registrar's posts in general, orthopaedic or thoracic surgery at the Royal Lancaster Infirmary, the North Lonsdale Hospital, Barrow-in-Furness, the Frenchay Hospital, Bristol, and the Park Hospital, Manchester. He gained the Fellowship in 1961. He emigrated to Canada in 1966 and settled in practice as a thoracic surgeon at Edmonton, Alberta, living at 15111 Rio Terrace Drive. He was appointed a Fellow in the Division of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery of the Medical Research Institute of the University of Alberta and Associate Resident in the parallel division of the University Hospital; he was later a sessional instructor in the University. Sheikh died of carcinoma, a month before his fortieth birthday, on 7 March 1971, survived by his wife Joan and their three young children, a daughter and two sons. Publication: Duodenal ischaemia complicating acute pancreatitis. *Brit med J* 1965, 1, 1539-40.