Ved Sachdev was born in Mitranwali, India, on 22 February 1932. His father, Gridhari Lal Sachdev, was a headmaster, and his mother, Amar Rawla, a housewife. During the riots that followed the partition of India he lost his eldest sister, and his family was obliged to flee to Amritsar, where he was educated at Khalsa College and the Government Medical College. He qualified in 1955, winning the Colonel Nat gold medal in surgery. After junior posts he served in the Indian Navy for three years, followed by posts as resident in ENT and head and neck surgery, first in Patiala and later in Amritsar. He went to England for further training in ENT, working in Musgrove Park Hospital, Taunton, and St James Hospital, Balham, before returning to India as senior lecturer and assistant professor in ENT and neurosurgery in Chandigarh, where he remained for three years before deciding to go to America. After a rotating internship at St Joseph's Hospital, Lorain, Ohio, he began his neurosurgical residency at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York under Sidney Gross and Leonard Malis. After passing the US boards in neurosurgery, he stayed on at Mount Sinai, rising eventually to be vice-chairman of the neurosurgical department, training a generation of young neurosurgeons, including his daughters. An early interest in amateur dramatics gave his lectures great style and force. His special interest was in microsurgery of the spine. He married Ranjeet, also a doctor, in 1969, and both their daughters, Ulka and Ricka, followed them into medicine. He died on 8 August 2000 from a malignant lymphoma in his hospital, Mount Sinai.