Rushdi Sidra was a general practitioner in Bradford. He was born on 15 October 1943 in Wad Medani, Sudan. His father, Shafig Sidra, was a civil servant for the Sudan government whose last post before retirement was as controller of accounts in the Sudan Purchasing Office in London (from 1964 to 1968). He was later a financial adviser to the Sudan Council of Churches. His mother was Hanna Makary Sidra née Kamal, the daughter of a wealthy merchant in Egypt. His uncle was a surgeon in Sudan and minister of health in Sudan from 1968 to 1971. Sidra was educated at primary and intermediate levels at Wad Medani and then studied at the Khartoum Government Secondary School. He went on to medical school at the University of Khartoum, qualifying in 1968 with prizes in anatomy and surgery. He held a preregistration surgical post in Khartoum under Marriot Nicholls and junior posts at Khartoum Civil Hospital. He went to the UK, where he worked in Lincoln and Dewsbury and, from 1974, in Bradford, where he was a senior house officer and registrar at Bradford Royal Infirmary and St Luke’s Hospital. He gained his FRCS in 1976 and specialised in urology. In 1980, he decided to become a general practitioner in Bradford, though he initially worked as a police surgeon. He worked at a practice on Vulcan Street, which later moved to Highfield Health Centre, where he carried out minor surgeries. He retired, but returned to work just 18 months later when he was invited back to do four to five surgeries a week. Outside medicine he enjoyed snooker and chess. Rushdi Sidra died on 24 July 2006 at work from a massive heart attack. He was 62. He was survived by his widow Denise (née Falkingham), who he met in December 1971 while working in Dewsbury.