Ronald Saunders was born in Melbourne on 16 February 1928. His father Herbert was an accountant and his mother Florence née Cooper was a secretary. He studied medicine at Melbourne University where he earned a blue for athletics. When in England in the early 1960's he worked at the Whittington and St Thomas's Hospitals. Returning to Melbourne he held appointments at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and the Frankston Hospital where he eventually became Chairman of Surgery. He married Constance Cummings in 1951 and they had a daughter, Kerryn, who became a paediatrician at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne, and a son, Gregory who became a yacht builder. Constance died on 2 June 1979 and he married Marilyn Bodinar, a nurse, in 1980. He is thought to have died sometime in 2001, survived by his second wife and his children.