'Raj' Dutta was born in Chittagong. His father was a general practitioner in Rangoon before the war and joined the British army after the Japanese invasion. Raj qualified in Rangoon in 1953 and worked there before coming to England in 1958. He took a number of junior posts, training in Edinburgh, Birmingham and at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in Stanmore. He passed his FRCS in 1961 and was appointed consultant orthopaedic surgeon to the Royal Gwent Hospital in 1969. He was a keen golfer and very much a family man. When he died on 25 August 1996 he was survived by his wife, Joyce, two sons and a daughter, who was also a doctor.