Sudhanshu Sekhar Gayen was a surgeon at Joyce Green Hospital, Dartford, Kent, and then a general practitioner. He was born on 1 August 1930 in the Midnapore district of West Bengal, India, the son of Jogendra Nath Gayen, a schoolteacher, and Bimala Bala Betz Gayen, a housewife. His family were landowners and were very well known in the local community. Sudhanshu lost both of his parents when he was very young. He loved school and from an early age wanted to become a doctor. He passed his school matriculation examinations in the first division and thereafter passed all his exams with honours. He was offered a scholarship to study medicine at Calcutta University Medical College. While the scholarship covered his tuition fees, he had to work to cover his living expenses and in his spare time he tutored school students. He passed his MB BS in 1956. Following house posts in Calcutta, Sudhanshu worked as a senior intern in surgery at Ottawa General Hospital, Canada. After a year he decided to move to the UK, where he held a series of senior house officer posts. He worked in the North Middlesex Hospital in north London, in the thoracic surgical unit, where he performed various major and minor operations and procedures, including intercostal intubation, pleural aspiration and bronchoscopy. He then moved to the North Herts and Lister Hitchin hospitals and performed major operations with the hospital consultant. As part of a team of colleagues he was in charge of 45 general and urological beds. At North Staffordshire Infirmary as a senior house officer he performed operations in the neurosurgical unit, including inserting burr holes and Spitz-Holter valves. In 1966 he was offered a post as a registrar in general surgery, orthopaedics and fractures at St Andrew's Hospital, London, during which time he passed his final fellowship examinations of the Edinburgh and English Royal Colleges. In 1969 Sudhanshu accepted a post as a registrar in urology and general surgery at Joyce Green Hospital, Dartford, Kent, where his pre- and post-operative care was acknowledged as outstanding by his consultant. He published several unusual cases in journals. He used to say that: 'To be a good surgeon it is not only necessary to perform successful surgery, but it is of paramount importance to provide post-operative care and support to meet individual needs.' In 1974, due to ill health and also exhaustion, he decided, with great personal sadness, to leave his surgical career. In 1978 he entered general practice, where he looked after nearly 4,000 patients. On 27 August 2014 he died after a long illness. He was 84. He was survived by his wife Indu, to whom he had been married for nearly 40 years.